


A Thousand Burning Eyes

by VelkynKarma



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood, Canon Compliant Major Character Death, Gen, Injury, Lovecraftian Monster(s), Major character death: not Team Voltron, Some Suspense, Zarkon (Volton)-centric, some horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-06 05:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 55,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11593992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VelkynKarma/pseuds/VelkynKarma
Summary: He is the black paladin. In his very blood is the ability to lead, and his purpose has always been to protect. He will fulfill that purpose to protect the universe, no matter what it takes. That is the duty he swore to, and he will keep to that oath as a paladin until his dying breath.No matter what the cost may be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! This is my submission for the **Voltron Gen Mini-Bang** over on tumblr!  
>  https://voltrongenminibang.tumblr.com/
> 
> Partnering with me for art is the lovely curiosity_killed, who can be found here:  
> http://curiosity-killed.tumblr.com/  
> Credit to them for all the absolutely _fantastic_ art pieces you'll be seeing throughout this fic! Go check her out for more great art and writes too! 
> 
> This fic will be posting daily until completed, so keep an eye out for seven days of writing/art combos in the future :)

The first time Zarkon and the Black Lion ever use a phase shift together is exhilarating.  
  
The first time they use a plane shift together, however, is terrifying.  
  
It isn’t by design. Zarkon hadn’t even known the Lion was capable of bridging the gap between worlds. Alfor had built him, and Alfor had never spoken of such an ability in the Lion’s coding or in his magic.  
  
All Zarkon knows at the time is that his team is in _danger_. The ships are approaching and the other Lions have taken damage. Three of the other paladins are unconscious; Alfor is barely aware. The Altean and Galra fleets are on their way for backup but are still several doboshes away. The Black Lion is damaged too, and Zarkon feels his pain alongside his own wounds.  
  
But he is not the black paladin and the head of Voltron for nothing. Voltron can’t be formed, but Zarkon is not defeated yet. He will not let his team die before he draws his last breath.  
  
The Black Lion’s wings extend. He roars in agreement. Zarkon digs his claws deeply into the Lion’s controls and narrows his eyes.  
  
Death before defeat.  
  
They charge.  
  
They warp through the enemy ships. Zarkon feels them tearing apart under the pressure of the Lion’s strike, shredding them from the inside. He maintains the focus needed to hold the state, but pushes for more speed, more strength. Faster. Stronger. Lives will be lost if they aren’t the strongest on the battlefield. They cannot afford weakness here.  
  
The Black Lion responds. He charges, faster, stronger. They phase through more ships, so quickly Zarkon cannot track them with his own eyes.  
  
And then, suddenly, they aren’t in the middle of the battle anymore. They aren’t anywhere at all.  
  
Zarkon almost thinks he’s gone blind, but the Lion’s cabin still shines faintly white-purple and the array of screens are still lit up in front of him. The Black Lion’s visuals are pitch black, however. Zarkon isn’t sure where he is, but there are no stars, no ships, no signs of life.  
  
He is in an empty void. One that stretches for lightyears in every direction. It is isolated and open, and yet suddenly Zarkon has never felt more lost and trapped in his life.  
  
_I am here,_ he hears the Black Lion communicate to him. _I am here, paladin. Not alone._  
  
That steadies Zarkon ever so slightly. He has no idea how he got here or how to escape it, this endless void of absolute nothingness. He has no idea if he even can. But the Black Lion is with him. Whatever this place is, he will not face it alone.  
  
He tightens his claws on the control levers again, uses the feel of them in his hands to steady himself. Yes. Whatever this is, _wherever_ this is, he can handle it. He will find a way to escape it. He is the black paladin.  
  
He is the black paladin that is going to give Alfor _quite_ a talking to, for failing to mention a power like _this_ when first building the Lion. Assuming Zarkon was successful in his attack, and had managed to protect them at all. Assuming they all lived.  
  
That burns a fire in him, and the void is suddenly inconsequential. He doesn’t have time to be trapped by _whatever_ this is. The rest of the paladins are in danger. He must get back to them at once. That is his duty—to protect. To lead. It always has been.  
  
He is just about to study the data on his unexpected trip here, to find out what happened and find a way back, when he feels _it._  
  
At first it’s a sense of unexpected dread. It grows from a little whisper in the back of his head to something strong enough to send his heart pounding. He is inexplicably afraid, _terrified_ , but not of his own design. He tries to force it down—he is a king and he is the black paladin, and he is used to dealing with fear, acknowledging it and then overpowering it. But it will not relent. It is as though something outside of him as seized a hold of his mind and his heart and his soul, and dug its talons deeply into him. It claws away everything that has ever meant anything to him, leaving him stripped bare of happy memories and warm emotions and leaving him raw and flayed alive inside.  
  
He can’t stop his own fears. His hands shake on the controls; his whole body trembles. He feels paralyzed. He can hardly breathe. The terror is overpowering. Everything that has ever made him _Zarkon_ is deconstructed in seconds. He is no king. He is no paladin. He is nothing but terror and agony and weakness.  
  
And then the _presence_ comes.  
  
He feels it coming across the void towards him from lightyears away. It is impossible not to. The sensation of it is…overpowering. Incomprehensible. It is a being the size of a galaxy—no, a universe. Perhaps larger. He doesn’t have the capability to understand the scope of it; it is beyond his perception, too big for his terrified, shivering little mind to grasp. He is infinitesimally small in comparison, not even an insect to its vast size and awe-inspiring power. The very act of being in its presence _hurts_ on another level entirely. Zarkon can feel himself coming undone just by being near it, can feel his mind starting to flay back, feel his quintessence shredding, feel his very atoms shuddering into pieces.  
  
Something blooms in the void, bright and burning, but it is no star, no ship, no guiding light in the darkness. It is a single eye, larger than a sun, an inferno of power and knowledge and strength and cunning. It fixes its gaze on Zarkon, and Zarkon can do nothing but stare back, meeting it gaze to gaze.  
  
He screams, an agonized, primal noise of unchecked terror and pain. The gaze of the thing in the void is pure undiluted _force_ more than any living being was ever meant to see, and Zarkon is only mortal. He can’t handle the power of that stare. It burns into his very soul and sees things about him he can’t hide. It shreds him apart from the inside, ripping out every bit of strength he ever had with almost indifferent ease. His body can’t handle that much force; he can taste blood in his mouth, and every muscle and bone and nerve ignights with fire and freezes over with frost.  
  
But worse still, he can feel the thing’s _thoughts_ , and these too are things no mortal was ever meant to contain. He feels its desire to escape the void, to feed, to destroy, to end all things. He feels its patience—its terrifying, endless patience. It hungers, it hungers so much, but it has waited a billion billion years for its chance and it will wait a billion billion more if it must. He feels its hunger strongest of all, the need to devour everything, all things, all worlds, all universes, so many universes that it can sense and smell and comprehend that he can’t wrap his head around. The thoughts are all so big, too big, with concepts of time and space and existence too large for a mere mortal like Zarkon to ever fathom. He feels like his mind will burst apart from the inside, and still he cannot help but feel those thoughts in his head. The agony of them is indescribable.  
  
He can’t break its gaze. He can’t even comprehend how to look away. A hundred other burning eyes blossom in the darkness, a thousand, each staring into the depths of his body and soul and mind, each puzzling over the minuscule speck of life that has wandered across its path, carelessly tearing him to pieces. A thousand different forms shift and flow in the void, ever changing, ever present, never truly visible, always only felt. But he is only aware of the one burning eye, and all he can do is stare. He cannot even scream anymore; his voice is frozen, his lungs paralyzed. He screams in his own head, until even his own inner voice goes silent from the pressure of the thing in his mind.  
  
The presence moves closer. Zarkon is terrified. Zarkon is in agony. But Zarkon can do nothing.  
  
And then he hears something new. The tiniest whisper under the cacophony of the thing in the void’s thoughts. The barest breath of strength in the fierce gale of the void creature’s power. The tiniest trickle of concern in the deluge of the void creature’s terror and pain.  
  
_The Devourer comes, paladin,_ a voice whispers. _Flee. Hurry._  
  
He almost doesn’t recognize the voice. He is almost too far gone, too stripped away of everything meaningful, to know it. But he does recognize it, just barely, with the last dregs of his strength. And it is enough to remind him of who he is, for just the barest of ticks.  
  
He can’t wrench his eyes away, still. This thing is too powerful. Godlike, where he is a mere mortal. But mortals have choices. And mortals can fight.  
  
Death before defeat.  
  
With the very last of his strength, he raises his left hand to his face, and claws at his eyes.  
  
The strike is awkward and uncoordinated, infantile compared to his usual ability. He doesn’t sever his locked gaze with the void creature. But he does drag a deep gash from above his left eye to his jawline. The pain is not nearly as intense as the void creature’s gaze, but it’s sharp and distinct and _clear_ in a way the void creature’s stare isn’t. The blood in his eye partially blinds him, and the gash helps him focus. He squeezes his other eye shut in the split second his mind regains clarity.  
  
Closing his eyes doesn’t help. The void creature’s stare still burn behind his eyelids. But it’s a mark of resistance all the same. Just barely, hardly consequential, but enough for Zarkon to seize even he tiniest bit of control.  
  
_Run,_ he tells the Black Lion. _Take what strength I have left. Run._  
  
And the Lion does. Zarkon isn’t sure how the Lion knows where to go. Zarkon can feel the burning gaze of the void creature and its thousand eyes surrounding them. He can feel that raw terror, feel its overwhelming power crushing him, tearing him apart. He barely has the strength to resist. He barely has strength to give the Lion at all. The Lion pilots himself now more than anything else, drawing from Zarkon’s lagging energy.  
  
But he runs anyway. Zarkon distantly senses the Lion’s wings spreading wide again, and the speed and strength as he soars through the void.  
  
He senses the void creature reaching for him, for _them_ , hungry and ready, its patience rewarded. They are the key that will unlock its prison. They will be the ones to escort it to the worlds, to begin the end of all things. It reaches, and—  
  
—and the Lion slips through its grasp, just barely, and they disappear.  
  
Stars. Sun. Planet. They break atmosphere, plummet towards the surface below. Zarkon is only barely aware of the cabin’s warning lights flashing, the danger beacons blaring. Only distantly aware of sky and stars and ground and existence at _all_ outside the void and its terrifying lone occupant. He is vaguely aware of the Lion’s concern, of his prodding words and worries and warnings.  
  
He gave everything he had to escape. Everything that is Zarkon has been flayed back to bone and soul and barest thought. He has no strength left to give, to fight, to fly.  
  
They smash into the ground. Zarkon is thrown from his pilot’s seat as the Lion thuds into the earth and drags a crater through it. He cracks against the dashboard panels and collapses to the floor of the cabin on his side. Blood trickles into his left eye. He barely notices.  
  
He doesn’t move for quintents.  
  
The Lion’s concern grows in his head, but he barely feels it. The Lion tells him he’s called for help, that the others are coming, to hold on, but Zarkon hardly cares. He feels sick inside, in his mind just as much as in his body. All he can see, conscious or unconscious, are those soul-seeing, burning eyes. All he can feel is the pressure of that immense presence on his body, on his soul, on his mind. He’s pushed himself too far to escape. He doesn’t regret it, but he’s coming undone. He can feel it.

  
  
He barely recognizes when the other paladins arrive. Alfor is at the lead, shouting for the healer sages, calling for immediate transport to a medical facility, ordering a cryo-pod to be prepared at once. “Hold on, my friend,” he says urgently. “We’ve found you. Hang on, just a little longer. We’ll take care of this.”  
  
Zarkon comes back to himself just long enough to recognize the four of them. All alive. All okay. _We succeeded,_ he realizes, and for the first time he speaks back to his Lion since their escape. _They lived. We saved them._  
  
_Yes,_ the Lion agrees. _We saved them. You are strong. Rest now. Survive._  
  
Zarkon doesn’t have the strength to resist if he wanted to. He surrenders to the darkness.  
  
The burning eyes are waiting in it.  


* * *

  
  
He spends almost twenty quintents in the Altean cryo-pods.  
  
It’s practically unheard of for anyone to spend that long in a cryo-pod for even the worst injuries. And when Zarkon steps free of the machine finally, he still feels as week as a day old _yesma_ kitten, and has very little to show for his healing. Some of the scars he received didn’t disappear no matter how the settings were adjusted, most prominently the self-inflicted one on his face.  
  
Zarkon cannot bring himself to be surprised by this. He can still feel the wracking pains of the void creature’s presence in his memory. The thing had not touched him, but even its _existence_ near him had left injuries that would never truly heal.  
  
He shudders.  
  
The paladins greet him with all too obvious relief, and Zarkon knows his team enough to see the creases of worry and concern on all of their faces. Alfor insists he sit, and won’t take no for an answer—and the man can truly be stubborn when he wants to be.  
  
He learns the reason for their worry soon enough. He had saved their lives in that battle, and then disappeared without a trace, along with his Lion. No sign or sound of Zarkon had been seen again for almost fifteen quintents, long after the battle had finished and the paladins had recovered. They had been frantic, until hundreds of galaxies away, a weak but unmistakably familiar distress call had reached them. The Black Lion had made contact again.  
  
They’d rushed to the Black Lion’s location, but Zarkon had been nearly catatonic when they’d found him. Unresponsive to treatment, they’d eventually placed him in a cryo-pod, but its effects were far too slow. Worse, his brain activity spiked almost constantly, fluctuating in erratic bursts that, combined with the poor healing, left the paladins anxious and worried for their leader. The Alteans had never had a medical case like it before. Alfor had been afraid Zarkon was dying. He couldn’t comprehend what was happening.  
  
Zarkon knows all too well. He’s seen nothing but the burning eyes of the void creature since he slipped into the darkness in the Black Lion. It has haunted his every thought and memory since the moment he first laid eyes upon it.  
  
Inevitably, they ask him what happened. Where he had been. Why it had taken him so long to return.  
  
He tells them. He tells them everything—the plane shift, the void creature, the terror, the burning eyes. He tells them how the Lion saved his mind from being completely broken. He tells them the reason for the scar on his face, for the others that wouldn’t heal. He tells them of the escape he barely managed. How he hadn’t even realized so much time had passed.  
  
The void creature devours all, including time itself.  
  
He tells them everything because he has to. This void creature is dangerous. Deadly. It will consume the universe when it is given a chance. And it is not a matter of if, of that Zarkon knows there is no mistake. It is a matter of _when_. The thing is patient enough to wait, and wait, and _wait,_ until its chance comes and it slips through the most minuscule of cracks in the planes to slither out into the worlds. It _will_ end the universe if it can, devour all of it if given the opportunity.  
  
But they are Voltron. They are the Defenders of the Universe. He trusts these four warriors with his life, and he knows they know their duty. They will become strong enough to defend against this thing. He can see their next true enemy ahead of them, this thing that they are destined to defeat. Zarkon will lead them to victory against it. Of that, he is certain.  
  
But when he finishes speaking, they are silent.  
  
“We must prepare to combat this creature at once,” Zarkon finally says, after a long moment. “It will destroy the universe as we know it, and countless others besides, if we do nothing.”  
  
“Perhaps we should not be so hasty,” Alfor says, too slowly, in response.  
  
Zarkon frowns. “You would have us do _nothing?_ ” he says after a moment. He can see those burning eyes again, strung across his vision, across the void. Imagines them in the universe. Trembles inside at the thought.  
  
No. To do nothing is not an option. And it never will be.  
  
The other paladins exchange glances, and then look to Alfor. Zarkon is not surprised by this. Alfor is second in command in the Voltron hierarchy, and the one most willing to counter Zarkon’s orders when necessary. It stands to reason they would look to him as spokesperson.  
  
“That isn’t what I am saying at all,” Alfor says, raising a hand placatingly. “But you were badly injured, Zarkon. And despite the cryo-pod finally releasing you, you still look exhausted and hardly recovered. I do not believe now is the time to be discussing such drastic measures.”  
  
“It will hardly be a better time when this void creature is devouring our planets,” Zarkon says, with a trace of a snarl. “I do not have time to be coddled. We must prepare to _fight_.”  
  
The rest of the paladins look uneasy, but Alfor does not back down. “You can hardly plan anything rationally in your current state,” he argues. “You are tired. All of us can see it. Take some time to recover, my friend. You will be no use to your people as a king or as a paladin if you charge back into battle before you are ready.”  
  
Alfor is not wrong, but something about his argument grates at Zarkon’s instincts. This is the argument of a concerned friend, but it seems almost patronizing, concerned in the wrong way. And he can see it in the eyes of the other paladins as well, and the way they watch him uneasily.  
  
They don’t believe him, Zarkon realizes. They think his story the ramblings of nightmares and delusions. They don’t want him chasing after threats they do not believe exist.  
  
His eyes narrow at that, just a little. He knows they trust him—Voltron could not be formed if they did not. He knows their disbelief is the product of worry, not distain. But it galls him to think they could so easily disregard his words after everything they have been through together as a unit.  
  
Still, he is a leader; he is the black paladin. Part of his duty has always been to see things from their perspectives as well, and turn it into something with substance, a plan of action. They are concerned because of his condition, and they are afraid for his safety. Considering the circumstances, perhaps that is understandable.  
  
He will take their advice into consideration. He will retire for a time back to his home planet, take the time to recover, set his affairs in order with his kingdom. The terror the void creature inspired is real—he knows it is real—but he also knows he must not act rashly and let that fear control him. They _must_ act, they _must_ prepare for this thing, but they must do it properly. Unprepared haste will only escort it into their world faster than before.  
  
“Very well,” he finally agrees. “With our current threat eliminated, Voltron is not presently needed in combat. I will take the time to recover back on Galra.”  
  
The paladins are a skilled group, capable of maintaining proper appearances when needed. But Zarkon knows them all well, enough to spot the signs of relief in each of them as he finally agrees to their concerned requests.  
  
Zarkon is a king of his word, and he does return to his home planet for the time being to return his attention to his people. Recovery is a slow process, and in a way he never does seem to entirely heal right. But he is gradually able to return to fighting form, as the weakness leaves his body once more and he regains his proper physique and combat abilities.  
  
His body recovers, but his mind _remembers._ He does not forget the thousand burning eyes he saw in the void, or the terror they inspire, or the thoughts and the patience and the hunger that were much too large for his mortal mind to comprehend. That fear is powerful, and he permits it to inspire him, but not to drive him. He carries it with him through his recovery, and knows the truth for what it is. These are no fever-dreams born of wounds and pain. These are real. The void creature is _real._ And he must never forget that, or let the true mission leave him.  
  
He becomes accustomed to the deep scar on his face, from eye to jaw. It never heals properly, but he no longer wishes for it to. It serves as a very visible reminder of the kind of enemy he is planning to face. Of what it can do. Of what _he_ must do to fight it.  
  
He grows stronger. His resolve grows stronger as well. And when the call comes again for Voltron, in a galaxy’s hour of need, Zarkon knows that it, too, _must_ be stronger, must be prepared for the fight ahead.  
  
His first fight since the incident with the paladins, and with the Black Lion, is successful in more ways than one. He proves to the paladins that he _is_ fully recovered, that he is more than capable of making intelligent and efficient calls, that they can trust him even despite their worries when they first recovered him. And he proves to himself that he can still pilot the Black Lion—because he cannot deny that his first time in the pilot’s seat after seeing the void creature is filled with fears that he will return to the void, and this time he will never escape.  
  
But he doesn’t return, and he does succeed in the mission. They form Voltron. They protect innocent people. This is everything a paladin stands for.  
  
So he broaches the subject of the void creature again, and preparing for battle. This time, he does so from the position of a capable, efficient, strong leader who has thought the matter over carefully time and time again. One who cannot be mistaken for a fever-addled wounded soldier, fresh from a harrowing experience.  
  
They listen. But they still do not believe him.  
  
“There’s a band of space pirates spreading in the Shirouk Quadrant,” they say. “That’s a more immediate goal, their people have been sending us distress signals. Why don’t we tackle that, first?”  
  
“The Halkdrik moons are collapsing. Their people desperately need our help to evacuate. We cannot abandon them now in favor of a fight against this…thing.”  
  
“There’s a _cordash_ feeding on the people of the city of Suremetta. Only Voltron is big enough to tackle such a beast. We should strike against it first, to eliminate that threat.”  
  
They never argue against him completely. They never quite come out and say it. They always misdirect, evade, find other missions more immediate and more pressing for Voltron to handle. But Zarkon is no fool. And he knows his men too well to fall for such a thing.  
  
“I am not insane, Alfor,” Zarkon eventually snarls. “I know what I saw. The threat of this creature is _real_. It cannot be put off forever.”  
  
“No one is calling you insane, old friend,” Alfor says, placating. “There is no one more trustworthy or reliable in a moment of trouble. There is a reason we all follow _you_ , you know. We trust you. That is why we worry for you, too.”  
  
Zarkon fumes internally, but there is little he can do to persuade them on just his own words. Very well, then. They trust him because he is a man of action. He will show them how real this is. He will prove it.  
  
He continues to join them on missions, direct them as fiercely and efficiently as ever, and they continue to take his orders without question. Voltron forms with no difficulty. Enemies fall. Lives are saved. They do their duties to the universe without complaint.  
  
But in every spare moment Zarkon has, he prepares—himself, if no one else.  
  
He studies whenever he can. First in the libraries and data halls of his home planet, and then Altea’s fine libraries. The Olkari archives. The Bytor chroniclers. Independent data records. Anything he can find, always searching for some mention of a void creature, of another plane with a watcher with a thousand eyes that hungers and waits to feed on anything in its path. He finds nothing, but this only makes his search more frantic. Surely somewhere there _must_ be records of this thing. Something so immense, so terrible, could not have gone completely unnoticed and unseen by all beings. He will find an answer, and find a way to fight it.  
  
And he trains. He trains beyond anything he ever has even as a paladin. He pushes through flight drills continually, practicing more and more fine control with the phase shift. He forces himself to master it, to know the point at which he has gone too far, to avoid another accidental plane shift. He will not risk wandering into the void creature’s lair again.  
  
He trains outside of the Lion as well, meditating, reaching out beyond himself, transporting into other planes via his mind. Reaching the astral plane is difficult, and training in it is even more so. There is always the ever-present danger of being connected to one’s body with only the tiniest thread of quintessence, and if that thread snaps, the mind will drift away forever. But fine control here makes him stronger in mind and spirit, and _every_ piece of him must be strong. Strong enough to resist, even just a little.  
  
He had not been strong enough to fight the void creature before. He will not let himself show such weakness again.  
  
He strengthens himself as much as he can, but there is one other piece to consider. On his own, the void creature would have consumed him effortlessly. But the Lion was with him. The Lion resisted, somehow. It reminded him of who he was, and helped him fight back the tide of darkness and madness.  
  
And the Lion had known the creature where no one else had, not in record and not in story.  
  
_You called it the Devourer_ , Zarkon says, as they train together.  
  
He can feel the Lion’s unease when he broaches the subject. The Lion’s mind backs away from his own, avoiding.  
  
Zarkon does not let him run. _You knew this thing,_ he insists.  
  
The Lion hesitates, but he knows his pilot well. Zarkon will not rest until he has his answers. _I know_ of _this thing_ , he corrects. _I have never met it. I have never seen it. But I am of air and space. I have felt the void. I know of it._  
  
_It will consume everything,_ Zarkon says.  
  
_If it can,_ the Lion agrees.  
  
_We must stop it,_ Zarkon insists. _We must be prepared. We must fight it._  
  
The Lion seems uneasy with this. Zarkon can feel his thoughts and emotions—so much more gentle on his mind than the void creature’s, but still so immense. He agrees that the Devourer is dangerous, that they must be prepared, but he does not relish the thought of fighting it.  
  
The Lion fears this thing, Zarkon realizes. And that is a more frightening realization than he cares to admit.  
  
_Do not hunt this thing,_ the Lion tells him finally. _Prepare, yes. But do not search for it. Do not open the way. Do not give it power, paladin. To know of it is to give it more strength._  
  
_To not know is to risk opening the door for it out of ignorance,_ Zarkon counters, surprised at how angry he is. _We went into its void unprepared because I was not even aware of the risks. Would you_ ever _have told me that thing was there if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes?_  
  
_No,_ the Lion tells him bluntly. _To know is dangerous. Prepare if you must, paladin. But do not seek the Devourer. Do not give it strength._  
  
_I won’t hunt it,_ Zarkon agrees, but his thoughts are grim. _I am not foolish enough to do that. I won’t open the door and let it in. But I will not stand by idly in ignorance when a threat looms over my entire world. And I will not let others do the same. When it does come through the door, I will be waiting to drive it back._  
  
The Black Lion is frustrated, Zarkon can tell. He isn’t entirely happy with the decision. But a part of him also seems proud of Zarkon’s convictions, of his duty and dedication.  
  
Still, despite their disagreements, the Black Lion alone is the only being that seems to believe Zarkon’s tale at all. And the more time passes, the more Zarkon searches and trains, the more obvious that rift becomes.  


* * *

  
  
It finally comes to a head almost a full year after Zarkon first witnesses the Devourer.  
  
It comes after another successful battle with Voltron to save another galaxy in distress. The formation had been weaker than usual. The team had seemed preoccupied, hesitant to act around Zarkon, slow to merge with his mind and his Lion into one.  
  
Zarkon had been preoccupied as well. He had dreamed of the burning eyes again the night before, and felt the urgency of preparing for the Devourer’s coming once again. He is sure his thoughts and dreams bled into the Voltron link. He does not regret it. Perhaps if the others see what he has seen, they will be more willing to listen to his warnings.  
  
They are inspired to act after that battle, but they do not act the way Zarkon wants. They do not come to him with apologies for doubting him or agreements to follow him in preparations against the void.  
  
They come to him in the Castle of Lions, when the Lions are all safely back in their bays, and tell him he can no longer fly the Black Lion, or lead Voltron.  
  
“You are stripping my command?” Zarkon asks. He’s too incredulous to be angry. The Voltron bond had been weaker than usual, to be sure, but they had still trusted him enough to form together to begin with. His leadership must still _mean_ something. What is this, then?  
  
“It isn’t forever, my friend,” Alfor says, spokesperson for all the paladins once again. They stand behind him in a solid line of support, but it is Alfor that does the speaking. “No one doubts your leadership. But we are concerned for you, Zarkon.”  
  
Zarkon’s eyes narrow. “Concerned over what? Have I not led you all properly? Have I not proven myself time and time again on the battlefield? Saved all of your lives on more than one occasion? What is there to be _concerned_ about?”  
  
“No one doubts your prowess in combat, either,” Alfor agrees. “I am grateful for all the times you have saved my life, or assisted in protecting my people. But we are concerned about you outside of Voltron. This past year, your focus has been elsewhere. It has been so ever since the battle against the Kulessh, when you vanished and returned on the other side of the universe.”  
  
Ever since he entered the void. Ever since he saw the Devourer. Ever since he understood the true purpose and mission of Voltron.  
  
“It’s been taking its toll on you,” Alfor says. His voice is soothing, like he’s speaking to a wounded animal. Zarkon inexplicably hates him for it. “All of us can see it. You’re becoming obsessed with this vision, Zarkon, and it is eating you alive. You spend every waking tick pushing yourself to your limits and searching for stories. It is painful to watch you destroying yourself like this, over something that—“  
  
“—is real,” Zarkon interrupts, with a warning growl. “This is not an obsession, Alfor, this is a reality. This is a very real danger that we must be prepared for.”  
  
“There _isn’t_ anything, my friend,” Alfor says, as gently as possible—and somehow, that hurts far worse than if the Altean had lashed out at him. “Surely you would have found it by now in the thousands of texts you’ve looked at, in the thousands of stories you’ve listened to. We had hoped that when you could not find the evidence of this creature you spoke of you would relent, but it only drives you harder. We are _worried,_ Zarkon.”  
  
“And you think removing me from my Lion and my command will fix it, do you?” Zarkon snaps.  
  
“I think you need a _break,_ ” Alfor counters. “We’ve put too much on your shoulders, my friend. The black paladin has perhaps the most difficult job of all. You have had to make so many difficult decisions, take the burden of so many painful results. You have been responsible for so many lives. The strain of such a thing would wear on any person eventually, even the strongest. There is no shame to that.”  
  
“You think I’m weak,” Zarkon says, narrowing his eyes further.  
  
They all shake their heads. Alfor is insistent. “I think you are one of the strongest people I know, which is why it truly hurts _all_ of us to see this obsession tearing you apart. These things in your head are terrifying, Zarkon. You should not have to suffer them. Take some time to be free of the responsibilities of Voltron. Take the time to regain calm, to recover. It won’t be forever—we will _gladly_ accept you again as the head of Voltron after you have had a chance to rest—but for now all of us agree that it seems clear you need a break from these duties. Especially after you’ve been through something as traumatic as your disappearance—“  
  
“You don’t think I’m weak,” Zarkon interrupts. “You think I’m ill. No, you think I’m _crazy._ ” He feels personally offended, betrayed after Alfor’s insistence months ago that he thought no such thing. “You are so convinced that I’ve been injured or affected by that plane shift that I’m spouting delusions.”  
  
“That isn’t what we’re saying—“  
  
“That is _exactly_ what you are saying,” Zarkon snaps, ire raising. “You think between the duties of the black paladin and the events of that fight that I’ve been broken.”  
  
“Zarkon, it’s not shameful to need—“  
  
“Have I ever _acted_ broken?” Zarkon snarls. “You’ve all _seen_ into my mind with Voltron. You’ve all still followed me. Have I _ever_ given you the impression that I am incapable of handling these duties?”  
  
“That isn’t what we—“  
  
“And tell me, all of you, if I am truly that crazy, so crazy I am making the whole story up, where did I go when the Lion vanished?”  
  
“I don’t know, Zarkon,” Alfor says helplessly. “That’s not an ability the Lion was even supposed to be capable of. I never designed it for that. But we don’t know what it _means_. Perhaps you did go to another plane of existence, but perhaps it did something to your mind instead. We don’t know what that ability is capable of.”  
  
“So you _do_ think I’m crazy,” Zarkon says, now ice cold.  
  
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Alfor says. He’s still trying to sound soothing, but there’s a harder edge to his tone now, one of frustration. “Don’t put words in my mouth, my friend. We are worried about you. I do not wish to watch a friend of mine fall into the dark because I never offered him a hand of support. This obsession is hurting you, even if you can’t see it yourself. These terrible visions are causing you to suffer. The Lion is not helping matters. Neither is Voltron, or your duties as a paladin. You have been through a severely traumatic experience, Zarkon—what you need is _time_ , and a chance to heal. You have refused to give yourself that. You haven’t slowed down since that day. And your devotion to the cause is admirable, truly, but because we are your friends in addition to your allies, what we want even more than your devotion is for you to be okay. Take time to recover, my friend. That is all we are asking.”  
  
“What I saw was _real_ ,” Zarkon says, softly. He stares around at all of them, meeting each of their eyes, one by one, challenging. They look uneasy, but not out of nervousness or fear. They just look _sad._ Concerned. Sorry that it needs to end this way.  
  
They really do think he’s lost his mind. They really do think he’s _broken_. And he realizes, with a numb sort of realization, that absolutely nothing he can say here and now will change that.  
  
“The Black Lion will be safe in the Castle,” Alfor says after a moment. He, too, seems to realize that this is truly happening now, that there is no turning back. “We are not replacing you, Zarkon. I want to make that clear. No other pilot will claim the Lion from you. We aren’t stripping you of your title as paladin. You are still a part of the order of Voltron. And when you are ready we will be glad to call you our leader once more.”  
  
“And when will that be?” Zarkon asks. His voice is flat. Devoid of any emotion. He’s still too numb with shock that this is really happening to put any feeling into his words at all. “By what stipulation?”  
  
Alfor just gives him an apologetic look. “We will still be here to help you,” he adds, not answering the question. “My doors are always open. I am always ready to listen. So are the others.”  
  
“Except to the truth,” Zarkon says.  
  
They ignore that. “My sages are available to help with healing,” Alfor offers. “Many of them are skilled with dreams and nightmares; they may make your rest easier. Or you could—“  
  
“Forget it,” Zarkon says bluntly. “I find I am tired of all of this. If you won’t permit me to return to my Lion, then I am going home. Several Galra ships are stationed in your ports. I will leave at once.”  
  
The paladins look pained. Alfor shakes his head. “It needn’t be like this, my friend—“  
  
“Enough, Alfor. I have had enough of having my so-called insanity thrown in my face for the day. I am leaving.” He strides past them, the numbness starting to recede in place of an uncomfortable, sickly, betrayed feeling in the pit of his stomach.  
  
He doesn’t bother to head for the Black Lion’s hangar. He already knows it will be locked to him.  
  
“We are still your friends, Zarkon,” Alfor calls after him. “We are here to help. To provide support. That is what paladins of Voltron do. If you have need of us for anything…”  
  
Zarkon ignores him, ignores all of them, as he sweeps out of the room. Their offers of support are meaningless. They refused to believe him when it was truly important; they only want to help if it fits comfortably into their own view of how things should be. He will find no support from them, after all, and the disappointment is hot and thick in his abdomen.  
  
He leaves the room, never looks behind him. It’s the last time he ever sees all of the paladins of Voltron together.  


* * *

 

  
He does return to Galra. There is little else he can do, with the Black Lion lost to him, and thrown from Voltron as he is.  
  
The return is not the restful recovery Alfor hopes for. Zarkon does not feel freed from his duties as the black paladin. If anything, those duties press on him all the harder. His life has been devoted to defending the weak and the innocent, to protecting the universe. How can he do such a thing without the Black Lion? Without Voltron? His people are skilled warriors, certainly, willing and able to face down countless threats without fear and without regret, but they are mortal and they are numbered. Even tangible threats throughout the universe could be more than his people could handle in the wrong circumstances.  
  
And on their own, alone, they are no match for the Devourer.  
  
And the _Devourer._ How that eats at his _mind!_ It felt like a betrayal to know the paladins had thought him sick or broken, but he had always known in the back of his mind that they never really believed him. It hurts to have it laid bare, but even then he is strong enough to deal with it.  
  
But the loss of the Lion is too great, because the Black Lion is the only thing that has ever believed his story. The Black Lion is the only being that has ever laid eyes upon the Devourer besides Zarkon himself. The Black Lion’s opinions on the void creature may differ, but he _knows_ Zarkon is right, at least. That support has been something Zarkon has relied on time and time again, in the face of nightmarish visions and his own frightening doubts.  
  
And now that support is gone, and Zarkon is isolated, and alone. And suddenly, for the first time, he is not entirely sure that his vision for his future is the right one.  
  
Perhaps Alfor and the rest of the paladins are right, he wonders. Perhaps he _has_ imagined all of this. Perhaps the burden of the black paladin has become too much for him to bear. Perhaps the strain of activating such a power in the Lion was too great a toll on his mind. Perhaps it was the stress on his body and on his quintessence of teleporting in an unknown, undocumented way that left him so wounded. Perhaps the Devourer is all in his head, a desperate attempt by his mind to take everything he suffered and convert it into something he can face in combat. To put a face and a potential victory to a truth intangible and terrifying that he doesn’t want to see.  
  
Perhaps it isn’t real at all. Perhaps he really is broken. Perhaps he really _is_ mad.  
  
But every time he has almost convinced himself that the paladins are the ones speaking truth, every time he is _almost_ sure that he really is breaking himself chasing after shadows, he closes his eyes, and he sees the Devourer again. Sees those burning eyes, boring into the depths of his soul. Senses that presence, pulling him apart on a fundamental level. Feels the immense pressure of that great and powerful being, crushing his very existence into nothingness.  
  
He remembers, and he feels, and he sees, and he knows again that this _is_ real. The terror of that being had been too real to deny. The pain of it he still feels in his bones, and he knows it for what it is. He remembers its thoughts in his head, more immense and incomprehensible than anything he could ever create on his own.  
  
The Devourer is _real._ It is real, and he can never forget those eyes, that mind, that hunger. It is real, and when he imagines it—when he considers what that void creature had done to _him,_ a paladin, still only barely strong enough to resist, happening to _trillions_ of innocent peoples and planets—he cannot accept it. He cannot accept even for a second that thing flaying the souls and minds and bodies of his people, of his friends, of innocent families. He cannot back away from that and willingly ignore it, not even for his title, not even for the reassurance of his friends.  
  
He will protect the universe. It is what he was _born_ to do.  
  
But it will not be an easy fight alone, without the Black Lion, without Voltron. The paladins would be ideal allies, but they are more convinced than ever that he is delusional. They are afraid for him, and that fear makes them unlikely to listen to his words. Even the images in his head transferred through Voltron did not seem to convince them any. If anything, it only made them more concerned over the monsters they believed to be dredged up in his mind, and worried for his health and well being.  
  
Is there any way to convince them?  
  
The only way for them to _truly_ understand would be to look upon the Devourer themselves. And he could show them, if he chose to. If he could regain the Black Lion, he could take them with him. With his training, he is sure he could reach the void again.  
  
But no. _No._ That will never be an option. _Do not hunt this thing,_ the Black Lion had said, and Zarkon takes that warning seriously. To travel there again would be to invite disaster. The Devourer must not be accustomed to visitors; their arrival in its void will have been an anomaly. It will be waiting for them now. If the Black Lion appears in the void again, it will seize the chance, slip through the cracks left behind, and come pouring out into the universe. That is not a risk Zarkon finds acceptable. No one must travel to the void again.  
  
And Zarkon will admit, to himself if no one else—he fears more than anything seeing that creature again. Even if the Lion had not warned him to stay away, Zarkon would not hunt it willingly once more, would never go of his own volition towards its presence. Being near it once had nearly broken him, even as strong as he is. He will absolutely prepare to fight it for the day it comes through into his world, and do so without regret. But he will never lose his fear of it.  
  
The paladins will not see the Devourer, then. They will never be convinced that it is real. And Zarkon realizes there is nothing else he can do to convince them. No matter how hard he tries, they will never, ever believe him.  
  
They will never listen. His truth is a terrifying one, one they don’t wish to accept. One they can’t accept, not when there is a much more believable solution, as much as it saddens them. They believe he’s been broken.  
  
And the truth is he was, but not in the way they think. The Devourer did break him, in a way, but he has reformed himself in his own image. He is aware of the threat. He is enlightened. And that is something they can never comprehend, not until they have been broken and reformed in the same way. And he would not wish that agony on any of them. If he can spare the universe the touch of the Devourer, he will.  
  
And perhaps…perhaps _comprehending_ is ultimately pointless. What need is there to understand when they don’t wish to? He can’t force them to understand anything, not if they don’t want it, not if they refuse to see.  
  
But if they cannot comprehend the danger, the next best thing they can do is to be prepared for when it comes, even if they don’t understand why. And Zarkon…Zarkon cannot make them understand, but he can make them strong. As strong as anything, as strong as they must be to resist, strong enough to be prepared for the danger when the time comes.  
  
Yet it is a daunting task. Because this encompasses more than just his friends, more than just his people, more than just Voltron. The Devourer will not stop for just a few beings, a few planets, even a few galaxies. It is so large it defies mortal comprehension; it will consume the universe, the whole of it, unless the whole of the universe stands as one to fight back against it.  
  
_Very well then,_ Zarkon thinks. _I cannot make the whole of the universe understand the threat either. But I can make the whole of the universe strong. Unified. Prepared. When the day comes that the Devourer finally breaks through the barrier, all of them will be ready. All of them will be strong. All of them will fight—and they will prevent the universe from falling._  
  
Because it is not a matter of _if_. It is a matter of _when_. It will find its way through eventually. It is too patient and too hungry not to.  
  
But Zarkon will not let it take hold so easily. He knows the danger. He is prepared. He is the only one left capable of such a feat. And he is the black paladin—Lion or no. He will make the difficult decisions. He will lead the charge against the creature. He will unify them, make them a single unit. He _will_ protect the universe, no matter what it takes. That is the duty he swore to, and he will keep to that oath as a paladin until his dying breath.  
  
This is the only way left. Even if no one ever knows what he does for them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, today got a lot busier than anticipated.
> 
> Also as a head's up: this is the chapter where the canon-compliant character death comes in. You probably already know who it is, but y'know. Fair warning.

Preparations begin in secret. Zarkon informs only his most trusted advisors and generals of his intent. He cannot afford to give any sign of his intentions until it is too late.  
  
He cannot afford it because the first strike _must_ be against Altea itself, and they cannot be allowed the benefit of a warning. Alfor does not understand the danger, but his people are strong enough to fight Zarkon in this. In a prolonged fight, the casualties will be numerous, and both of their peoples will be weakened. The universe cannot afford such weakness. Altea must join him, or it must fall.   
  
And Zarkon must remove Altea from the coming war quickly for another reason: Voltron. Alfor controls the Lions. He has the ears of three of the paladins and he himself controls the fourth. For all Alfor’s claims that he will not be replaced, Zarkon is well aware that in a prolonged battle, Alfor will not hesitate to try and find a new pilot for the Black Lion—a pilot that will not know the danger of the creature they alone can reach. If Alfor can, he will have Voltron. And Voltron is too powerful a weapon to have against him at this stage, and too valuable a weapon to not control himself.   
  
Altea must fall. And Voltron must be recovered. Both objectives are absolutely critical for solidifying his first foothold in the battle against the Devourer. And Zarkon will not permit himself to lose his first foothold at such a critical juncture.   
  
Even if it does mean striking against his old allies.  
  
Zarkon’s generals and advisors are shocked at the declaration. But they are also loyal, and prepare for the coming war without hesitation. They discuss battle strategies and necessary supplies, and survey the advantages and disadvantages of both armies. Zarkon unquestionably has the advantage in numbers, numbers that he can supplement with worker sentries easily if they are modified to have more combat protocols, and the element of surprise will be in his favor as well.  
  
But Alfor’s soldiers are skilled, and in addition to having four of the five Lions of Voltron on his side, he also has magic. Magic is something that Zarkon’s own people can sense naturally, but have little ability for, and combating it with technology will be difficult. It is by far the largest barrier he and his generals must break through before they are truly ready for an assault. They spend quintents discussing potential strategies, to no substantial result.  
  
Zarkon feels the press of time heavily, and sees those burning eyes every night as he retires, after yet another long discussion in his war rooms. His instinct tells him to rush in and secure his power now, because he _must_ begin unifying the world as soon as he is able. But his tactical side that made him such an efficient black paladin tells him to wait. He cannot rush this. If his assault on Altea fails, he will expose weaknesses in his own army and in himself that he cannot afford. This must be done correctly. Failure is not an option.  
  
It is during these debates that the Altean delegation arrives.   
  
“The delegation wishes to see you, sire,” an attendant informs him. “They insist on speaking to you directly. They claim it is of great import.”  
  
Zarkon’s eyes narrow. “Another delegation?” he growls. Alfor has sent two others since he was thrown from Voltron. “Sages?”  
  
“Yes, sire. All sages, and what appear to be some acolytes as well.”  
  
Zarkon’s fingers dig into the command table, hard enough to drag scratches into the metal with his claws. All of Alfor’s delegations have been sages. _Healing_ sages. Alfor is becoming very insistent on carrying out this charade of wanting to help heal him after his ‘great trauma.’ Zarkon turned away the last two delegations with increasing ire, refusing their aid and sending them back with the message that he needed nothing. He is fine. There is nothing to treat and nothing to heal.   
  
It infuriates him to think that Alfor still will not _listen_. That he still insists on sending this so-called help when Zarkon does not need it and does not _want_ it.   
  
“Tell them to leave. I have no time for them, just like I had no time for their brethren.”  
  
“I informed them as such, sire,” the attendant tells him wearily, “but they refuse to leave until they have spoken with you directly. The lead sage is very insistent, sire.”   
  
Zarkon is furious, but unsurprised. Alfor does not respect him or his truths. Why should his people be any better?  
  
“I will get rid of them myself,” he snaps, sweeping from the room. He will teach them to respect a king. “Keep discussing. Find a solution.”  
  
His generals bow in acknowledgement as the door slams behind him.  
  
The sages and their acolytes wait in the reception chamber of Zarkon’s palace. The attendant has done everything he can to dissuade them, removing chairs or refreshments in a deliberate disregard for guest protocol, but this does not appear to bother the sages any. They stand patiently in the middle of the room, each one in the same crisp white and gold robes of the Altean palace. These are some of Alfor’s personal sages, then—Alteans with great magical skills, used for healing, divination, advising, and even combat. There are about fifty of them all together—a small number compared to the hundreds in the Altean palace, but rather large for a delegation of token healers.  
  
Zarkon bares his teeth in disgust. Alfor is becoming _far_ too insistent with this. Does he think throwing _more_ sages at the problem will solve it? He should know better than to think he can erase the problem by flinging his magics at it. He does not need help with recovery. There is nothing to recover.  
  
“You waste your time,” Zarkon tells them without preamble, striding towards the group. “Be gone, and tell Alfor I do not need _healing,_ or his presumption that I must be ill. And for the last time, I am not insane. I know what I saw. It is _real_. If he wishes to discuss further, then tell him to have the courage to speak with me directly, rather than hiding behind envoys like a coward.”   
  
He turns to leave almost as fast as he arrives, raising his hand to gesture for several guards to escort the Alteans out—forcibly, if need be. He cannot kill them, of course, not if he is to preserve his element of surprise for the true attack. But he need not treat them like honored guests either, sages or no.  
  
But he’s barely raised his hand when one of the Alteans speaks. “I do not believe you are insane at all, sire. As it happens, all of us present believe you.”  
  
And that…that is unexpected. So much so that Zarkon pauses. He has, until now, been determined to fight this fight alone. His soldiers will go to war even if they do not understand why. His generals listen respectfully but can’t comprehend the cause, only the order of their king. And he has learned by now it will be impossible to convince anyone to believe him. So he does not expect it any more, and it comes as a great shock to hear someone say they do.  
  
He drops his hand, and his guards fall back. He turns, and stares at the Alteans.   
  
One of them steps forward. She appears to be one of the older members of the party. Her robes have a number of marks that mean she has been a sage for many years, enough to be considered a master of her craft. He has never seen this Altean before, but she holds herself with confidence, and when she meets his eyes it is with the look of an equal.   
  
“Go on,” he says, after a moment.  
  
She offers a respectful bow. “Thank you, sire,” she says. “I feel I should inform you this delegation does not come at the orders of King Alfor. We came of our own volition. It is imperative we speak with you.”  
  
“On what matter?”  
  
“Your vision of the void.”   
  
Zarkon narrows his eyes and stares directly into hers, but she does not flinch at his gaze. She speaks truthfully—of this he is certain. She is not here to treat his mind. She is here to listen to it.   
  
“Find us a place we might speak at once,” he orders his attendants.   
  
“We do not believe you are wounded,” the female Altean begins, once the delegation is safely herded to a private room for discussion. She appears to be their spokesperson, or possibly their leader; they seem content to let her explain. “Or that you are insane. What you have seen, this void-creature, we believe is real.”  
  
“And what reason have you to believe so?” Zarkon asks. He is still suspicious. No one has believed him before. Why would such a thing change now? “Have you seen it?”  
  
“Not directly,” the Altean says. “Not to the extent you have. But I have seen portents in the crystals. I have done powerful divining rituals outside of the court’s needs. And there is something very dangerous sleeping deep down in the darkness of the roots of our universe, and countless others, sire. I have sensed it.”  
  
“And you are convinced of what you have seen?”  
  
“The crystals do not lie, sire,” the Altean says. “And none is more skilled with the rituals of seeing than I. This thing that sleeps at the roots of the universe—it is dangerous. It is patient. It is a threat to every life in every galaxy. It should not even be there. And I believe it is what you have seen, as well.”  
  
She really does believe it. Zarkon can see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice. It’s evident in the way she holds herself, in her confidence. She knows with absolute certainty that she speaks truth—just the same that he himself has kept to his words despite all the ridicule and disregard given to them.   
  
Still, one thing troubles him. “If you are so aware of the danger, why come to me?” Zarkon asks. “You have your own king. Perhaps if Alfor heard of the danger from more than one source he would come to believe it.”  
  
But the Altean shakes her head. “King Alfor is a noble ruler, and he cares for his people, but he is also a fool. A well intentioned fool, but a fool nonetheless, willing to ignore threats he cannot make sense of rather than face them head on.”  
  
“Have a care, sage,” Zarkon says warningly, a trace of a growl in his words. “Alfor and I may be on poor terms of late, but he is still a king, and you are still his subject. I will not permit such disrespect.”  
  
“I apologize, sire,” she says, with another low bow. “I do not intend for disrespect, but I also do not have time to play games. This being is a threat. I am sure you feel the press of time just as strongly as I. King Alfor will not see reason, no matter how often we tell him of dark portents. He does not believe they can belong to such a creature; he believes they are indications of a more tangible threat. Our brethren still on Altea do not help matters any, agreeing with him on the interpretations of the crystal divinings. This is like nothing he has ever encountered. I do not believe he is capable of handling this threat. He does not have the mindset for it. He does not have the strength for it.”  
  
She stares Zarkon directly in the eye. “But I believe you do, sire.”  
  
 “And why is that?” he asks, not breaking eye contact.   
  
“You were strong enough to survive an encounter with this void creature at the roots of the worlds, even unprepared,” the Altean says. “You have proven yourself time and time again to be a skilled warrior and tactician, and as the strongest of the Voltron paladins. You are one of the most influential individuals in the universe, able to make things happen that I and my sages never could. You have never broken on the subject of the void creature, no matter how many others deny the truth you speak. You have never backed away from your duty to protect the universe, never turned to ignorance to pretend the threat does not exist.  
  
“And, sire, if you question those reasons, I have also seen visions of you, as well. I have looked into the facets of the crystals and divined many things. You have the potential to do great and powerful things, sire. To unite the universe. To become one of the most powerful beings within it, with strength enough that you can, perhaps, fight the darkness in the roots of the universe. And the crystals do not lie, sire.”   
  
Zarkon doesn’t disbelieve her. He has seen Altean diviners predict incredible things, see into the hearts and minds and souls of individuals in ways beyond himself or his brethren. She really does believe what she says. And more importantly, she believes _him._   
  
“If that is so, then why are you here?”   
  
“To help in any way I can,” she says. “And my colleagues agree with me. They have seen similar portents. They understand the threat is real, as well.”   
  
Zarkon glances away from her, around at the others. They are silent, but each one bows their heads in agreement when he looks at them. None argue. All of them look grim.   
  
Zarkon considers.   
  
This isn’t all of the Altean sages, certainly. The majority of them will have remained with Alfor attending to their duties. It is possible they haven’t even realized these sages have left. He wonders why the others would ignore such a threat, if they even saw it. From what he has seen, divination is a difficult skill, and not many Alteans are gifted with its abilities.   
  
But even if this isn’t the majority of Alfor’s magical forces, Zarkon cannot deny that having them as allies would be…convenient. They have the magical skills his people do not, and can provide power and alternative combat solutions where there were previously none. They may be the very solution to his current campaign in the making, allowing him to counter Alfor’s magical defenses and soldiers. Even fifty sages would bolster Zarkon’s armies significantly, and perhaps even more can be trained with their assistance.  
  
And he cannot deny that having others who know and understand the threat of the Devourer will make the fight against it much easier. He will not shirk the duty, and he is willing to bear the majority of the burden, but one man alone cannot hold against a being like that forever. If he has the opportunity to find allies who know the full extend of the danger, he must consider it.  
  
But he is still not entirely certain he trusts them. This Altean comes to him with conviction, but it is not an easy thing, to watch one so easily turn on their own people. If she can disregard Alfor so easily, what is to say she will not turn on him, as well? And he has no way to control their magics other than blind loyalty. He cannot guarantee it in a people not his own.   
  
“If I am to accept your aid,” he says finally, “you must foreswear your allegiance to Alfor, and bind yourself to me instead.”  
  
“We will do so immediately,” the Altean says, without hesitation.  
  
“You are very quick to renounce your king,” Zarkon says, eyes narrowed. Alfor is beloved by his people. It seems strange they would turn on him so soon.  
  
“Alfor was my king, but living things are the source of my duty,” the Altean says. “I am first and foremost a sage. I have trained for countless years in the arts of healing, and of seeing, and yes, of combat. But all of these things are taught to us with the goal of preserving life, for the greater good. This thing we have both seen _ends_ life. It does not just kill; it will eradicate. All of us can see its shadow in our readings, but my brethren here and I are the only ones who acknowledge it for what it is. We will fight it. Will will sacrifice anything necessary to keep it at bay. And that preservation of life extends far beyond any kingdom. Even that of our own King Alfor. If that is one of the sacrifices we are asked to make, then we will do it, and gladly.”  
  
Zarkon steeples his hands in front of him. He considers carefully. He knows this is a turning point; his decision now will have great impact on everything to come.   
  
“You will have the strength to lead us,” the Altean finishes softly. “And we will provide you with the wisdom necessary to do so.”   
  
He can see her devotion to this cause. He can see she truly believes everything she says. He will not trust her blindly—her trust will have to be earned in the coming quintents. Perhaps longer. But should she prove herself, he is sure she, and her brethren, will be truly powerful allies in the battle against the Devourer.   
  
“I will accept your pledge of loyalty,” he says, rising into a stand. “But know that I do not suffer traitors kindly. Understand the choice you make now. There will be no turning back once you have done so.”   
  
In answer, she kneels. As one, the rest of the sages follow her lead. They pledge their loyalty to him clearly, foreswear Alfor and take Zarkon as their true leader. He accepts the pledge solemnly, and knows this is his turning point in the first steps of the war.   
  
“Rise, sage,” Zarkon says. “And tell me your name.”  
  
She rises gracefully. Looks him in the eyes. And answers.   
  
“Haggar.”   
  


* * *

  
  
Zarkon does not trust the sages blindly. He has them watched for quintents; there is always the possibility they are intended to be spies. If they are, he will need to dispose of them before they can uncover anything damaging. He cannot let Alfor know of his impending attack.  
  
But they do not try to escape the palace, or communicate back to the Altean home world. They remain in their quarters unless called for, and perform tasks asked of them, however menial. Several assist in the med bays with wounded soldiers. Others enhance some of the Galra war technology with magical components, in the same vein as Altean combative technology.   
  
Haggar is perhaps the one Zarkon interacts with most. She acts as the liaison for the Galra sages, and attends to Zarkon’s needs personally whenever he requests the advice of any of them. She has done two divining rituals for him since arriving, and provided at least one demonstration of her magical combat powers, which are fearsome in their own right.   
  
Her second divining foresees battle, and a great change in the power of the universe. A weapon broken and not restored. A universe taking the first steps towards unity. Zarkon upon a throne, staring into the darkness. The change comes soon.   
  
Zarkon is sure she knows what he plans. She has done nothing to betray him so far.   
  
He brings her to his war meetings.   
  
She isn’t surprised in the least when she realizes what the generals plan. She does not seem disappointed by the news. Her composure does not crack. She merely nods in acceptance.   
  
“The universe cannot have two kings,” is all she says. “If they will not accept the truth, they cannot be allowed to obstruct us when we prepare to fight a greater threat.”   
  
And she tells them how to overcome Alfor’s magical defenses.   
  
Haggar is ruthless, absolutely willing to make any sacrifice necessary for this greater goal. She understands the importance of it, and complies readily. And that is the moment that Zarkon first begins to truly trust her as an adviser. She understands the dangers, and that harsh decisions must be made for the greater good. She sees his vision for the future in a way no one else has to date, not his former companions and not even his generals. And that will prove valuable in the battles ahead.   
  
He brings her fully into the fold. Elevates her to the same status as his generals, and listens to her advice carefully. She treats him respectfully, as one should their king. But she is also not afraid to speak her mind, not in the face of such a great threat. He finds he relies on that more than he realizes.   
  
They prepare for the assault on Altea.  
  


* * *

  
  
The initial attack is quick and ruthless. They strike hard and fast, before the Altean fleet can even react. Between Haggar and her Galra sages countering Altean magical defenses, and his own soldiers’ skilled, efficient strikes with their warships, the majority of the Altean fleet is decimated before it can even begin to fight back.  
  
They encounter only one of the Lions. None of the paladins had expected such an assault; none of them would have been prepared to fight back against it. The lone paladin fights valiantly, and against anyone else may even have still turned the tide of the battle. A Lion of Voltron is no easy being to fight.  
  
But they do not fight just anyone. Haggar may have the insight on the Altean magic, but Zarkon has the insight on the paladins. He knows each and every one of their fighting styles, their combat skills, their glaring weaknesses. He’s been in the head of each and every paladin, knows how and when they will strike. That was his job as the black paladin, and he uses it to his advantage in combat now.   
  
The Lion is driven back by his tactical maneuvers with his warships. Zarkon does not want to risk destroying it, not when it is vital to Voltron, and capturing proves difficult with the rest of the fleet to deal with. The Lion flees, and Zarkon is sure his former fellow paladin is rushing to warn Alfor of the assault.   
  
It hardly matters. In the end, Zarkon will achieve victory, and Voltron will be his—the best weapon he has in his arsenal to use against the Devourer. It is perhaps the only thing that can face the void.   
  
When the fleet is eradicated, Zarkon has his men bring up a direct feed to the Castle of Lions itself. He is sure Alfor waits here with the rest of the paladins, conferring. He will give them one last chance to surrender—one last chance to join him.   
  
If they do not, then he will have no choice but to end them. He cannot have them in his way. He cannot fight a two-front war against the Devourer and the paladins.  
  
The feed blinks up in a holographic screen in front of him. Zarkon can see Alfor at the controls of the Castle of Lions itself, still on Altea’s surface. His daughter is next to him and still in royal dress, which only emphasizes how quick and devastating his attack had been, and their inability to prepare for it. One of Alfor’s attendants waits nearby at one of the control stations; Zarkon recognizes the man from formal gatherings. He does not see the other paladins.   
  
That strikes him as odd.  
  
“Zarkon,” Alfor says. It is a greeting, but there is a low growl to his tone. This is not the friendly King of Altea that Zarkon has known for years. This is the paladin of Voltron, facing down an enemy.  
  
It is truly unfortunate, that it comes to this. But Zarkon can no longer see him as a friend, either. For he, too, is a paladin of Voltron, the black paladin, removing a tactical threat from the field before it can endanger the mission.  
  
“Your fleet has been destroyed, Alfor,” he says. “I will be there shortly to claim Voltron.” It is one last offer to surrender, should Alfor choose to take it. Hand over Voltron willingly, and perhaps they can avoid bloodshed.  
  
He knows Alfor won’t take the offer. But he still feels he owes it to his former comrade to try.  
  
The feed cuts, broken by the other side. That alone seems enough of an answer for Zarkon. He orders his captain to pilot the flagship into the Altean atmosphere, an descend for the Castle of Lions. Already another warship is working on destroying its particle barrier. The Castle is powerful, but it can only last for so long.   
  
When his flagship grows closer, Zarkon feels it again. For the first time since he left Altea and the Castle, after being stripped of his leadership of the paladins, he feels the Black Lion’s mind and presence reaching out to him. It’s like greeting an old friend after years, welcome and inviting.   
  
_I am coming,_ he tells the Lion. _I am coming for you. I will be there soon. We must prepare for the Devourer._   
  
The Lion’s thoughts are jumbled. He agrees they must prepare, but he feels uneasy. Disturbed. Confused. Voltron is divided amongst itself; the other Lions’ pilots fight their leader. What is happening, it wonders. Voltron must not break itself. That is not what it is. What they are.   
  
_I am sorry,_ Zarkon tells him. _You are right. Voltron never should have been fragmented. I will fix everything. I will reclaim the Lions and make you whole once more. Have patience._   
  
The Black Lion is still confused, he can feel. Uneasy. But he trusts Zarkon. He will wait as long as he must. He will—  
  
The connection cuts off abruptly. Zarkon’s eyes widen when he realizes he can no longer feel the Black Lion at all, even this close. He had a sense that the Lion was located in the Castle of Lions somewhere, but it’s like the Lion is completely gone now, vanished into the void.  
  
 _No,_ he realizes. _Not the void. Alfor has sealed the Lion somehow. He is trying to prevent me from reaching him._   
  
Zarkon cannot accept this. The Black Lion, of all of them, is the most dangerous one to have out of his own hands. No one else knows how to control the Black Lion’s plane shift; no one believes there is a danger with it. He is the only thing in the entire universe that can reach the Devourer and the only thing that can watch it clearly. Zarkon _cannot_ lose the Black Lion.   
  
“Take the Castle,” he orders his captain. “Now!”  
  
The flagship descends faster than before. It continues to blast at the Castle of Lions’ particle barrier, assisting the other warship. The Castle is an exceptional piece of technology, an incredible combination of magic and machine, and its particle barrier is one of the finest; it will take a while to break it down. But as long as both warships continue to blast at it, the Castle will have difficulty taking off, along with any Lions that may be inside.   
  
“Lord Zarkon,” one of his officers says suddenly, “Something is escaping from the Castle!”  
  
“Visuals,” Zarkon snaps. “Now.”  
  
The holoscreen that snaps up shows, not a Lion as expected, but a simple pod. A closer examination reveals one life form inside it, Alfor himself, speeding away at a breakneck pace towards the city limits. The Castle of Lions’ particle barrier remains up as he turns his back to it.  
  
Zarkon frowns. What is Alfor up to? He knows his old friend would never abandon the Lions in the Castle. Nor would he so easily abandon his people; Alfor considers the protection of his followers paramount above all else. He is certainly planning something, but Zarkon cannot imagine what move he could make in so short a time.  
  
Then again, Alfor is also the only one who has ever been able to rival Zarkon in tactics. Alfor was the one who fought the Great Universal Sphinx in their old training trials with clever maneuvers. If anyone can pull an upset in this attack, it will be Alfor.   
  
“I have a lock on him,” one of the officers says. “Give the order, Lord Zarkon, and I can take him down.”  
  
“No!” Zarkon snarls. “No one takes down Alfor but me. Follow him. Korek’s warship can continue to break down the Castle of Lions’ particle barrier.” Without Alfor, the Castle may be able to move, but it will not be able to make a wormhole jump. Alfor is the only one capable of handling its teludav controls, and he must be present to do so. Zarkon is not concerned with it escaping.   
  
The officer bows dutifully, and the captain takes the flagship in lower to follow after Alfor’s pod. Zarkon rises from his seat of command, and prepares himself for the upcoming battle.   
  
“I can help you defeat him, sire,” Haggar offers. She has stood patiently at his side since the battle began, offering advice and answering questions as needed. “Alfor is skilled in the use of magics. You may need my help to counter him.”  
  
“No,” Zarkon says. “This fight is mine alone.”  
  
Haggar doesn’t look as though she agrees, but she does know better to argue. She bows, and relents.   
  
Zarkon understands her concern, but disregards it. This is not a matter of pride, or revenge, or of making a statement. There is practicality to it, of course; he must understand what Alfor’s game is, here, and facing his old friend in combat may reveal that. He must know what tricks Alfor plays, and why he has sealed the Black Lion away completely.   
  
But there is another piece as well: respect. He and Alfor have had their differences, certainly. Alfor has infuriated him in these past movements, refusing to believe him, insisting that Zarkon is ill, that he is broken. Zarkon cannot entirely forgive him for that, or for his choice to willfully embrace ignorance when it puts the entire universe at risk. But he also cannot forget that Alfor was once a very close friend. That they fought side by side, that they saved each others’ lives countless times. That Alfor reached out to Zarkon and his people when the meteor first struck to help them rebuild. That he first helped him create the Black Lion. That there are countless fond memories of he and the other paladins in happier times, when they trusted each other implicitly.   
  
Alfor is a fool, but he is doing what he thinks is best for his people, and for the universe. He is a fool for not listening to Zarkon’s countless warnings, but Zarkon has always respected his devotion to his people, and his willingness to sacrifice for them, to always put them first. Alfor doesn’t understand, but he is still a good man.   
  
Zarkon knows this. And so out of respect, he will kill Alfor himself. Alfor deserves nothing less, as an old friend, and as a leader of his people.   
  
Alfor leads them on a merry chase throughout the Altean hills and mountains, but in the end Zarkon’s warship is able to take out one of his engines—just enough damage for the pod to be brought down. Zarkon knows this won’t kill the Altean. Alfor is a skilled pilot and has survived far worse. The pod crash lands in a field of bright red flowers, and Zarkon descends personally to meet him.   
  
“Zarkon,” Alfor greets him, standing amidst the wreckage of his pod.   
  
“Hello, Alfor,” Zarkon returns. “I will give you this one last opportunity to surrender.”  
  
But Alfor shakes his head, just as Zarkon knows he will. And then for a moment, the mask of the paladin fades, and he gives Zarkon a saddened look. “It needn’t end like this, Zarkon,” he says quietly. “There is still time for you to get help.”  
  
“I don’t need help, Alfor,” Zarkon says, biting back the anger he feels. “I know my mission, and the mission of Voltron.”  
  
“You are _sick,_ Zarkon,” Alfor says. “You can’t be thinking clearly. These things you speak of, these things in your head—they don’t exist. They aren’t real. Let us help you. Before this goes too far.”  
  
“They are very real, Alfor,” Zarkon says. “I have never been more sure of it.”  
  
“Zarkon—“  
  
“If you will not surrender, then I am sorry it must come to this,” Zarkon says, interrupting Alfor before he can give yet another meaningless offer for unneeded ‘help.’ “You refuse to see the threat of the Devourer for what it is, and for that your willful ignorance makes you a danger to the universe, Alfor. I tried to reason with every one of you, to make you see the danger, but you would rather hide from the shadows than face them.”  
  
“Zarkon—“  
  
“Since you are an obstruction to the very stability of the universe, I have no choice. As the black paladin, it is my duty to put an end to your ignorance and your rebellion.” Zarkon draws his weapon of choice—the black bayard, the weapon they had never bothered to disarm him of when he was put into a forced break from his duties.   
  
Alfor stares across at him for a very long moment. He looks shocked, but a moment later his expression changes to one of sadness and resignation. “I am sorry it has to come to this, old friend.”   
  
“As am I,” Zarkon says, truthfully enough. “Draw your weapon. Let this be finished.”   
  
Alfor does not wait any longer. He does draw his weapon, but it is not his bayard—instead, it is an electrified staff, a common choice for Alteans but unusual in his hands. Zarkon is struck by the difference immediately. Something is not right here. First Alfor is without his Lion, and now his bayard?  
  
“Where is your _real_ weapon, Alfor,” Zarkon asks, with a low growl.   
  
Alfor looks Zarkon square in the eyes. “Destroyed,” he says after a moment, with a victorious little smile. “Along with the Lions. Along with Voltron.”  
  
Zarkon’s eyes widen. He remembers the way the Black Lion cut off so abruptly. Sealed, he believed—but what if it’s even more devastating than that?   
  
“Do you have any idea what you have _done_ , Alfor?” Zarkon asks, barely keeping the horror out of his voice. Voltron is perhaps the _only_ thing in the entire universe that has even the slightest chance of facing the Devourer and succeeding. If Alfor destroyed it…  
  
But Alfor only looks determined. “Yes. I’ve kept Voltron out of your hands. That is enough of a victory for me.”   
  
Zarkon has no chance to feel enraged. With a roar, Alfor charges, and lashes out with the first strike.   
  
Alfor is a skilled fighter; all of the paladins are. Zarkon has sparred with each of them time and time again in the past, when they were still a full unit, and all of them are exceptional warriors. Even without his bayard, Alfor fights hard and dangerously, and unlike when they are sparring he does not hold back. Both of them are well aware that this is a duel to the death, and that there will be no saving the other from the outcome.   
  
That is why Zarkon does not hold back, either. There is no flashiness to his moves, just cold efficiency and brutal skill. He changes the forms of his bayard so fast they move at the speed of his own thought; a shield to counter, a sword to strike, a cannon to force Alfor back before he can use close combat spells. The red flowers in the field burn under the assault, or are trampled underfoot as they move back and forth, or are shredded in the whir of blade and staff alike. The battle of paladins leaves nothing but ash and dust in its wake.  
  
Alfor is a skilled fighter. He makes Zarkon work for his victory.  
  
But Zarkon was always better.  
  
His final strike comes swift and sudden. Zarkon charges the sword form of his bayard with energy, but instead of lashing out with a swipe of power, he uses it to enhance the blade’s strength. He feints with the blade, and when Alfor twists to counter, he strikes. The bayard-sword pierces Alfor’s curias and slams through his ribcage, piercing his heart.   
  
It will be an almost instant death, as painless as Zarkon can make it. That is the most he can offer his former comrade now.  
  
Alfor gags and stumbles backward. The staff drops from his hands. He grips at the sword in his chest impulsively for a moment, slicing gouges in his gloves. Zarkon supports him carefully, and lowers him to the dirt and shredded flower petals, laying him out with as much respect as he can manage. Alfor meets his eyes once, but then the life fades from them, and he is still.   
  
Zarkon breathes deeply. Tries to ignore the tang of iron in the air from the blood on his weapon. _A necessary sacrifice,_ he reminds himself. _We must all pay a price to fight the Devourer. I am no exception._   
  
But even so, this had been a heavy price to pay.   
  
When he withdraws the sword from Alfor’s body, there is something different about it. The blade appears warped compared to just a few minutes ago, still functional but strangely twisted. When he reverts it to its base form, its appearance has changed—it’s darker in color now, with more jagged edges.

  
  
He frowns. Voltron was not made to fight itself, the Black Lion had said. The bayards are an extension of that, and he has just killed one of its paladins with the weapon of a paladin.  
  
 _A necessary sacrifice._   
  
He believes in his decision completely, but that does not make it any less painful.   
  
Several of his men are waiting for him with a transport back to his flagship. When he arrives, there is a flurry of activity, and Haggar looks livid.   
  
“The Castle of Lions has escaped, sir,” one of the officers reports grimly.  
  
Zarkon frowns. He isn’t surprised that whoever remained in the Castle of Lions would try to flee, with only one warship bombarding it. What does surprise him is that his men don’t seem to know what to do about it. “Give chase,” he orders, irritation sharp in his tone.  
  
“Sir,” another officer says, “We tried, but it eluded us over a varga ago.”  
  
“A varga—how long was I battling Alfor?” Zarkon asks, turning to Haggar.  
  
“Nearly three vargas, sire,” she informs him curtly. “Much of the assault has been continuing on while you were busy with Alfor, but this…” she gestures to the officer with a look of disgust. “This is a failure in our attack.”  
  
“They cannot have gotten far,” Zarkon says. “The Castle of Lions is formidable, but it is not fast. Our warships can out-speed it. Catch it. _Now_.” He is not certain if Alfor truly did destroy the Lions, or if he was bluffing, but the Castle of Lions was the last place he had sensed the Black Lion from before it disappeared. He _will_ have it, and he _will_ have his answers. The Black Lion cannot be allowed to elude him, more than any of the others.  
  
“We cannot, sir,” the officer says helplessly. “When the Castle of Lions broke orbit, it used a wormhole. None of our ships were able to follow. The ship could have jumped anywhere, sir. We’ve lost it.”  
  
“That’s not possible,” Zarkon snaps. “Alfor is the only one capable of using the teludav and creating a wormhole. His daughter might be able to, but she would never run.” Princess Allura was almost more Galra than Altean in that regard. Sometimes her impulsiveness drove— _used to_ drive—Alfor mad with worry. “There is no way it could possibly—“  
  
Too late, he remembers the conversation he’d had years ago with Alfor, back with the Black Lion was still being built.   
  
_“Perhaps your wormhole technology. Certainly a useful feature for a battleship.”_  
  
 _“You aren’t wrong, my friend, but unfortunately only a sacred Altean can power our technology with that particular ability.”_  
  
 _“That is highly inconvenient, Alfor.”_  
  
 _“Even to us, I will have you know. My attendant Coran thinks it might be possible to store residual essence for wormhole jumps, but it’s still very theoretical at this point, and you’d still need an Altean capable of storing that energy. But perhaps I have something else I can program this Lion with…”_   
  
No. _No._   
  
“Sire?”  
  
“Search for it,” Zarkon orders angrily. “Search for any trace of it. Haggar, get your sages out the point they teleported at, find some trace of where they could have gone. Divine for it. I want all scouts we have out hunting for that ship. _Find. That. Castle._ ”   
  
His men scatter to deal with their assigned tasks. Haggar comes to him to try and heal his injuries from the battle, but he dismisses her curtly, ordering her to her ritual. Then he sits in his seat of command, and digs his claws into the armrests so hard he bores holes in the material.   
  
“You have no idea what you’ve done, Alfor,” Zarkon whispers furiously under his breath. “You did what you thought was best, but you have no idea how badly you’ve put the entire universe in danger. If only you had been able to see.”  
  
Even in death, Alfor is an obstruction. And yet somehow, despite all his attempts to counter it, Zarkon is not surprised.  
  
Zarkon had always been the better fighter. But Alfor always _had_ been the better game master.  
  


* * *

  
  
They find no trace of the Castle of Lions. It is as though the ship has disappeared completely.   
  
Zarkon curses himself when he thinks about it in retrospect. When he’d first contacted Alfor to offer him a chance to surrender, none of the other paladins had been there. It had only been Alfor, his daughter, and his attendant. The paladins had clearly never intended to be there to begin with; the Castle was always intended to flee, rather than be defended.  
  
If they were smart—and Alfor has always been smart—they have fled to the other side of the universe and shut down as many systems as possible. With an incredible amount of distance and virtually nothing to track, the Castle will become invisible. Invisible, and beyond Zarkon’s reach, unless he manages to stumble across it another way.  
  
It is an infuriating loss, especially when Zarkon is _sure_ that the Black Lion—or at least its remains—are ensconced firmly within the Castle of Lions itself. He cannot forget the way he had felt and spoken to the Black Lion, only to have it cut off so abruptly. That, too, is a part of Alfor’s plans, of that Zarkon is certain. He only wishes he knew the full extent of it.  
  
With the Castle beyond his reach, he turns his attention instead to Altea. The defeat of the planet was imminent, but even with their king fallen, the Castle of Lions gone, the fleet destroyed, and the remainder of the Lions of Voltron curiously absent, its people had put up quite a fight. It takes several spicolian movements to firmly seize control of the planet, and by that point most of it is decimated.   
  
Zarkon is not pleased to see it come to this end. He has always respected this planet and its people; it is unfortunate to need to destroy them so thoroughly. But their resistance will prove an incredible obstacle to the war against the Devourer if they are permitted to fight back, and Zarkon cannot allow for such a weakness so early in his campaign. And the decimation of Altea sends a message to the rest of the galaxy: he is not to be trifled with. He will not be so easily defeated. And they would do well to heed the warning.   
  
He does find it a pity that so few Alteans flock to his cause. Very few at all, outside of Haggar’s Galra sages. They are a strong people, and would have made powerful allies against the void. That was why he had tried so hard to convince Alfor. But it was not to be.   
  
When Altea is secured, Zarkon moves to the now all-important primary goal of his takeover: Voltron.   
  
He isn’t entirely certain if Alfor was bluffing, still. If he was, Alfor has truly put the universe at a great disadvantage. But Zarkon isn’t certain, and if there is even a chance that any of the Lions have survived, he _must_ find them. He has search parties scouring the entire planet, hunting for the Lions, in any place they could possibly be hidden—old hangars, destroyed buildings, caverns and mountains and oceans.   
  
He doesn’t find any of them.  
  
He searches amongst the bodies of the fallen as well, not for the Lions, but for their pilots. The paladins of Voltron, besides Alfor and himself, have been curiously absent. Zarkon knows all of them well; he has been in all of their minds, worked as a team with each of them. They all have different ways of fighting, or of approaching a problem, but none of them would have abandoned the planet in the middle of such a massive battle. He can only think of two reasons that any of them would not have been present, or why they never arrived at any point to try and reason with or stop him: they have another mission that takes precedence over even Altea, or they are dead.   
  
He doesn’t find any of their bodies, not after many spicolian movements. And he starts to consider the alternative: that they were never here to begin with, just like the Lions.   
  
Did Alfor destroy them? Or did he send them on another mission? Zarkon _needs_ the answer, but no matter how much he searches, he can’t find it.   
  
And there is one other body he searches for: Alfor’s daughter.   
  
The longer he cannot find the Lions, the more he realizes Alfor’s daughter is the key to them. The Voltron Lions have always been linked intrinsically with the royal line of Altea; Alfor’s sacred line has always been connected to all five. In times of great need, when the paladins were separated in the past, Alfor was always capable of using the Castle of Lions and his own life force to locate his companions for a rescue.   
  
Alfor is gone, now, but Zarkon cannot see him having taken so valuable an ability to the grave with him. Alfor had known there was a strong possibility he would die the moment he left the Castle of Lions. He would have prepared for that possibility; Alfor was too thorough to not. If he really did destroy Voltron, then more has been lost than simply the ability to find its pieces. But if Voltron yet exists—if the Lions were sent on another mission somewhere—Alfor will have ensured they could be found again, somehow.   
  
And if the Lions are linked to the life force of a sacred Altean, than his daughter must be the key to finding them.   
  
He has his men overturn ever casualty, look through every building and vehicle on the planet. Princess Allura is not among the lost, and neither is Alfor’s attendant. In a way, Zarkon is grateful for this. To find the Lions, Princess Allura must still be alive, and if their bodies cannot be recovered then she must yet live. But she is also not on the planet, and the last place either of them were seen was on the Castle of Lions itself.   
  
He can only conclude they have escaped, and that they are far beyond his reach. More dangerously, she has escaped with the knowledge of how to find the Lions, if they still exist. And she has always been a brave and forthright soul, believing strongly in justice and the paladin code. There exists a very strong possibility that, if Alfor did not destroy Voltron, she will reassemble it herself and use it against him.  
  
It is a disturbing thought, but one he can do very little to fight. Without knowing her location, or the location of the other Lions, there is nothing Zarkon can do to combat the possibility that Voltron make come after him one day in the near future.   
  
His only solace is that the Black Lion is still loyal to him—loyal, and he understands the danger. The Black Lion is the only being that believed him before Haggar; the Black Lion has seen the threat himself, and knows the necessity of preparing for it. The Black Lion will not accept another pilot so easily—not when he knows what Zarkon does for the universe. He will not willingly oppose his true paladin. And that, perhaps, will be enough to keep Voltron from assembling against him until he can recover it for himself to the fight against the Devourer.  
  
There is nothing else he can do to obtain Voltron. He has Haggar’s sages divining regularly for it, searching for some sort of clue to its whereabouts. His scouts already roam the galaxies, searching for signs. His men scan the universe for any sign of the Castle of Lions that they can find, so that they might track it. The full might of the Galra army is extended as much as it can be for Voltron.  
  
But Voltron is but one weapon in the arsenal to be used against the void. Voltron would certainly be useful, but the void will not wait for Zarkon to reclaim it. It will come regardless of whether or not the universe is ready for it. And Zarkon _must_ make it ready, in any way he can, by any means necessary.  
  
He still has his men search for Voltron. But from the ruined ashes of Altea, he turns his gaze outward, and sets his sights upon the rest of the universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of all the pieces curiosity-killed made for this fic, this one is probably one of my favorites! That sky is gorgeous, and the mood is just perfect.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is ten thousand years long.

Altea is Zarkon’s foothold in the universe. From there, he is able to step forward confidently, and extend his reach slowly but surely in an ever continuing campaign throughout the galaxies.   
  
At first it is only a few planets here and there. The Altean solar system is absorbed first. Most of its peoples resist, and Zarkon eradicates them as cleanly and as efficiently as he did Altea. There is no room for weakness so close to the heart of his legion. He cannot have rebellions this close to the center of his control. So he snuffs it out, absolutely and completely.  
  
From there, he gains a reputation as he spreads outward to the next solar system. Some planets resist, and are crushed just as forcefully as Altea. Zarkon will leave no exceptions, and will not permit weaknesses.   
  
Others are more hesitant to fight. Many planets surrender, and they are occupied and absorbed into his now-empire. He finds uses for them where he can. They are weak, weak enough to consider surrender an option, weak enough that they will be useless in the battle against the void itself. But they have other uses besides as warriors, he finds. Labor colonies, to harvest supplies or food for the growing empire. Technical skills, to enhance the Galra war machine’s weapons and technology to become even more efficient for the battle. Information and data harvesting, to supplement the knowledge of the Galra empire still further, to prepare them for anything they might encounter.   
  
Still others do not just surrender. Instead, they willingly embrace the Galra empire when it comes to their skies. They do not understand the purpose of the Galra empire. They care not for stories of the void, or preparations for a final battle against the Devourer. They are sycophants, seeking even a small piece of power that the Galra empire provides. Zarkon finds their ambition galling, but he will take their help where it comes. Many of those races are skilled warriors, and he is able to conscript more fighters into his army, or produce better weaponry and technology with their willing assistance. If feeding them scraps of power is all it takes to keep them on a leash and prepared for the final fight, Zarkon will accept it.  
  
They spread further. After his first hundred years of relentless campaigning his reach has spread enormously; he controls numerous solar systems, without traces of rebellion. Everyone who has ever fought against him has been broken, destroyed, or occupied. The planets that remain with still living occupants are firmly under his control, in all regards. He sets up governing under the Galra empire with military precision, to his exact standards. Currency, economy, trade, education, travel, government— _everything_ is to his specifications. The more firmly he controls every aspect of all lives under his reign, the more he can ensure that all people under the Galra empire are prepared for the day the final battle comes.   
  
And that must always be the goal, _always._ It is not enough to own solar systems, galaxies, the whole universe. His control is unquestionable, but it is not enough by itself. He must protect them, all of them, and the only way he can do that is to ensure they are ready when the time comes. That they are strong enough to resist. That they have done their part to fight against the Devourer, even if they do not understand what that part is, or what it is they have done.   
  
They must be the strongest. They must be prepared. They cannot be weak. He cannot let them be, not if they wish to survive.   
  


* * *

  
  
After two hundred years of unifying, he starts to feel the passage of time in his bones.   
  
He is not beyond his prime yet, but he is no longer as young as he once was. And yet, he cannot afford the weakness that comes with age. The Devourer has not struck yet—he must still be preparing. Voltron has not been found yet—he must ready the universe by other means. But he is only mortal. He cannot last forever. And he begins to worry about the fate of his empire if he dies before the battle comes.  
  
Haggar brings him the solution.  
  
Haggar is still at his side two hundred years later, but this does not surprise Zarkon any. Alteans are almost enviously long lived. She still commands the magical Alteans she brought with her those two centuries ago, though they no longer call themselves sages. After the fall of Altea, they renounced their identities as Alteans, and now consider themselves purely Galra. Many of them keep their skin constant dark blues or purples, and adjust their statures to match their fully Galra brethren. Most of them choose to hide the facial marks that they cannot completely disguise with stylized masks. Haggar renamed them druids, to symbolize the change. An ancient term, she said, for beings who once worshipped both life and knowledge in all things, and understood its sacrifices and cycles well, now lost to the depths of time.

  
  
She lives yet with ease, but Galra do not have the lifespans of their magical brethren. Fortunately for Zarkon, she has a solution.   
  
“Quintessence, Lord Zarkon,” she says. “The source of life essence and energy in every living thing. If we were to infuse you with more, it should revitalize you. It will heal the age from your body, and make you strong again.”  
  
Zarkon knows a little of quintessence. It is the bond that ties paladin to Lion; it is the thread that keeps him bound to his own body when he travels to the astral planes. He can sense it, to some degree, as can many Galra naturally. But he has never heard of it being used before in such a way.  
  
“And how does this…infusion work?” he asks.  
  
“A ritual,” Haggar answers. “Four druids and myself must be present—one for each of the four directions, and one to direct. We will channel the energies into you, my lord. It will be similar to a healing spell, but more permanent. The goal is not to fix a hurt—it is to take away a weakness.”   
  
Zarkon cannot argue with that. Any chance to scrub away weakness he will take. He is the general of this army, the one who will face down the burning eyes of the Devourer directly—he must be the strongest of all.  
  
“And where does this quintessence come from?” he asks after a moment. He does not know much of quintessence, but he knows enough to know it is not readily available throughout the universe so easily.  
  
“From something living,” Haggar answers, after a moment of hesitation. “Anything living. A plant, an animal…or a person.”   
  
Zarkon stares at her for a long moment. Haggar does not flinch.  
  
“This does not seem like something the diviners and sages would have practiced,” Zarkon observes, after another long moment of silence.  
  
“It was…not an encouraged practice,” Haggar says, after several ticks. “Life gifted willingly could be used to heal. Some soldiers would offer what was left of theirs to save a friend. But it was not encouraged, not to lengthen lives past their due.” Her expression hardens. “But I am not a sage any longer, sire. I am a druid. I understand that sacrifices must be made for the greater good. You cannot be allowed to fall, Lord Zarkon, especially not to something as meaningless as age. I will take whatever steps I must to prevent it.”   
  
After a very long moment, Zarkon nods. “The war prisoners,” he says after a moment. “Many of them will be executed anyway. Their lives can be put to use towards the cause. It will spare the innocent to fight in other ways.”  
  
“I will attend to it at once, sire,” Haggar says.  
  
He never does see the prisoners, but four druids come to him fairly quivering with power that evening, and Haggar herself possesses more energy than he has ever felt from her. They inscribe runes in the floor and arrange themselves in a complicated geometric pattern. At Haggar’s signal, they raise their hands and begin to channel energy, while she chants and directs the flow. Some of it is lost in the casting, but Zarkon feels the moment the rest of it enters him. He feels half a century younger almost immediately; muscles less sore, back straighter, footing more firm. He feels _stronger_ too, ready and able to take on an entire fleet just by himself. He can feel that energy coursing through him in a way that electrifies his body and mind, makes him faster, more agile, ready for anything.  
  
He stares at his hands in awe, clenches them shut, and relishes the crackling feel of energy as it finishes dispersing through his skin. “Incredible,” he says, after a moment. “I feel far stronger than I did this morning.”  
  
“This was only a first attempt, sire,” Haggar says, stepping close, as her druids obediently fall in behind her. “The practice was forbidden. This is but a clumsy attempt to reassemble it. I am certain with more study I can refine the practice. It will not just keep you alive and in peak form; it will make you more powerful than any mere mortal could imagine.”  
  
“Do it,” Zarkon orders, with a nod. That taste of power is fleeting, but already he wants more. He knows he needs more. He can feel the Devourer’s burning eyes on him, and even this power pales in comparison to what he knows the void-creature is capable of. “Any resources you require are at your disposal. The war prisoners are available for your experimentation as needed.”  
  
She bows. “Thank you, Lord Zarkon,” she says. “I will not squander this offering.”   
  
She doesn’t. Haggar is possibly the most skilled with magic that Zarkon has ever seen in any Altean, even those of Alfor’s line.  Over time, the ritual gets more complex, but also more efficient. The infusions don’t just keep Zarkon alive; they make him _stronger,_ make him _faster_ , give him power outside of anything a Galra could ever be capable of naturally.   
  
He will need that strength for the day the void finally breaks free. All of it and more. He accepts it willingly, endures the infusions and the experimentations without complaint. He feels stronger, but never really _changed_ —not until the day he looks at his own reflection and sees his golden eyes are gone, replaced with a permanent sickly purple glow. The glow of the remains of hundreds of bodies worth of appropriated quintessence.   
  
_What am I doing to myself?_ he asks. _Is this what a black paladin is?_  
  
 _A necessary sacrifice,_ he reminds himself. _You must be strong for the entire universe. The cost of your soul is a pittance by comparison. That_ is _the duty of the black paladin._   
  
He doesn’t know much of quintessence, but already he knows it will ultimately be one of the most powerful tools and weapons at his disposal, the foundation of the Galra war machine and all of its efforts. It is a turning point. He continues with the infusions, and each ritual carries him one step closer to the day of the final battle.   
  


* * *

  
  
After one thousand years, the Galra Empire is an immovable presence throughout the galaxies.   
  
By now, Zarkon’s people have evolved, far past anything he ever could have expected of them one thousand years ago. A millennia of war and conquest has made them naturally gifted to the task. More and more, his people are born ready to fight, and live by the creed of victory or death. They are powerful soldiers, warriors with great skills as tacticians and officers, and their very culture and civilization revolves around military might and unwavering loyalty to their emperor. The strongest are the most revered, and the most likely to please their emperor. They all know this, and every one endeavors to be the strongest.   
  
Zarkon knows, because he has spent over a thousand years cultivating the philosophy. _All_ peoples must be strong, throughout the entire universe, but the Galra must be the strongest of all. His people must be willing to follow him into the darkness and fight it, no matter the danger, no matter the consequences. They must be able to bear the strength of the Devourer’s attack, when it comes. He can expect no less of his own.   
  
Not that they understand the true purpose of their attack, or their loyalty, or their patriotism. Zarkon has stopped trying to explain the void creature and its imminent attack centuries ago. No matter their loyalty, his people do not understand the real threat. It is enough that they are strong, that they are unwavering in their devotion to the empire. They need not understand their purpose, or the true meaning of the salute they offer their strongest fellow soldiers. _Vrepit sa._ Strength Against Darkness.   
  
With his people growing stronger, and supplemented with the now-refined combat sentries and improved upon war machines, the empire spreads with greater strength than ever before. Gone are the days when Zarkon must be at the head of every battle, using his own impressive might to bring victory. His empire pushes ever forward with its own momentum, an indestructible wall of might that no planet can defeat. His commanders are competent, handling the defeat, occupation, and colonization of worlds and harvesting of resources without his constant overseeing. His scouts continue to search the universe on their own for any sign of Voltron, the Castle of Lions, or Princess Allura, and know what to do in the event any of them are found.  
  
Zarkon still joins the fray often enough to make it clear to all who might oppose him that he has not vanished and he has not weakened. It will not do to let others think he can be defeated one day. But with his empire capable of handling many of its own affairs according to his strict military regulations, he is finally permitted the time to devote his focus to other things.  
  
He focuses on himself first and foremost. He trains ceaselessly, never letting himself lose his strength or his skills. No soldier—no horde of soldiers—can withstand him now, but he keeps his skills honed to a razor’s edge with katas and exercises, and in battles against the strongest and most dangerous of the peoples the Galra Empire faces. He trains himself mentally as well, visiting the astral plane often, making his mental defenses and senses stronger still. He finds more forms for his bayard, pushing it to its limits in the training decks. He accepts still greater infusions of quintessence, and ensures he can function properly with so much raw power coursing through him, refusing to let it overwhelm him.   
  
He is strong. Stronger than anything. Stronger than anyone in the universe. And still he knows he is less than an insect to the Devourer. As he is, he will not even present a distraction for the void creature. He must be _stronger._   
  
He must be stronger, and so must his men. If his soldiers and his weapons in his army cannot stand against him easily, they will be snuffed out without a thought by the Devourer. He must have an army that can withstand it.   
  
“Stronger men,” he tells Haggar. “You must find a way to make my soldiers stronger. Beyond the scope of what mere training can do for them. They _must_ be able to fight agains the void.”   
  
“That may prove difficult, sire,” Haggar tells him grimly. “We have been able to grant you strength and extend our own lives through quintessence. But there is only so much quintessence to be had, even with our refineries on the colonies.”  
  
She isn’t wrong. Centuries ago Haggar’s infusions had moved passed using prisoners as fuel. The amount of quintessence gained was no longer efficient or satisfactory for her rituals, not with the amount Zarkon needs to make him stronger. They’ve begun harvesting materials from planets to convert into quintessence instead. But even though the yield is exponentially greater, it is still very slow going, and requires druids to oversee the process.   
  
She’s not wrong, but he doesn’t care. “Find other ways,” he orders her. “Science, technology, magic—I don’t care. We don’t know when the void will strike. We _must_ have men who are capable of facing it. Without Voltron, the might of the Galra Empire is the only thing standing between it and the universe. We must be prepared for that inevitability.”   
  
“Of course, sire,” she says, bowing obediently. “My druids and I will begin researching at once. We will likely require test subjects to start—it seems unwise to experiment on your soldiers until we know for certain if the techniques work…”  
  
“The usual arrangement will suffice,” Zarkon says. There are no shortage of prisoners that resist the empire—if they will not willingly join to stand united against the void, they will be made useful in other ways. “You may have any resources you see fit for your research, but I want updates on anything useful you discover.”  
  
Haggar nods. She looks grim, but beneath the expression, Zarkon knows she is already considering her first options. Although over a millennia ago Haggar was a dedicated healer, her skills these days make her far more useful for enhancing and manipulating a body than fixing it. But it is a necessary sacrifice—and Haggar is ruthless when it comes to necessary sacrifices.  
  
So is Zarkon. They both understand the risks, the dangers, the necessities. That is why they work so well together, why he no longer doubts her loyalty, why he trusts her with his mission more than anyone else alive.   
  
Zarkon shakes his head. He stares out at the stars from the deck of his warship. The darkness is broken by pinpoints of light; if he stares too long, they start to burn, and he can see those thousand eyes staring out of the darkness into his soul. He can feel the press of each tick as it passes, as each one brings them closer to the inevitable battle.   
  
One thousand years. A millennia, and the void has not parted yet. They have survived this long, but the Devourer is patient, so patient. A thousand years is but the blink of one of its many burning eyes to the creature. It will wait. It will come.  
  
Zarkon and his empire _will_ be ready.  
  


* * *

  
  
After fifteen hundred years, Zarkon finally gives up hope of ever finding Princess Allura. Even the most ancient Altean has never lasted that long. They are a long-lived race, but age will claim them eventually.  
  
Princess Allura escaped Altea, but she was never found. Never once did she try to strike out against him, with Voltron or without. Zarkon knows if she lived, she would have made an attempt on his life without hesitation for what he did to her planet, no matter how necessary the attack had been. She would not have understood the necessity of it. He would not have expected her to.  
  
The princess does not come, and Voltron is left unfound. Without Allura, Zarkon will never be able to pinpoint the Voltron Lions so easily—if they even still exist. If they can be found manually at all. If Alfor did not truly destroy them as he’d claimed.   
  
These days Zarkon has more bitter memories of Alfor than not. He cannot forgive his one-time friend for splitting or even destroying the _one_ weapon in the universe capable of fighting the Devourer. The more the years pass by, the heavier the doboshes and ticks weigh on Zarkon’s soul, the more he is disgusted beyond measure with his former comrade’s last trick.   
  
But on the day he gives up on the search for Princess Allura, he spares a single moment of regret for his old friend—and for his only daughter, so beloved to him above all else, lost to the necessities of war. 

* * *

  
  
Two thousand years after the formation of his empire, a rebellion gains enough numbers and weaponry to launch a full-scale attack on the heart of the empire itself: the Galra home planet. They successfully shatter the planet and destroy almost all of the cities in one fell swoop.   
  
Zarkon decimates them.  
  
Rebellions and supposedly secret organizations appear every few centuries, when groups feel beleaguered enough to try and fight back against the tyrant they believe the emperor is to win their freedom. They do not understand the real purpose of the empire. They don’t realize that it exists to defend them against an even greater threat. But they are a thorn in the side of the empire all the same, and cannot be permitted to exist. Zarkon crushes them thoroughly every time, right down to the roots, and it takes another century or two for a new generation to reach the same ideas from centuries previous.   
  
It is an unfortunate cycle of weakness, but one Zarkon can do little about, other than eradicate that weakness when it begins to fester. He cannot make them understand; he can only make them strong, or make them fall into line. If they cannot accept either, they must die. A two front war is unacceptable.  
  
The strike against the Galra home planet was intended to shatter the heart of the empire. It is a well executed attack, meaningful on a physical and morale level. In an empire only a century old, it might have succeeded. In the Galra Empire, it breeds only a desire for retribution and vengeance.   
  
It’s a pity, really, Zarkon thinks, as he stands among the ashes of the rebels and their destroyed bases, once he is finished dealing with them personally. Their attack had been well planned. Brilliantly executed. They had been proud. Motivated. Their ingenuity and dedication would have made them useful in the fight against the Devourer.   
  
But they had exposed even a tiny weakness in his people, and created a divide in the unity of his empire—of the universe. And that cannot be permitted. And he cuts out the infection before it starts to spread.

* * *

  
  
Five thousand years after the formation of his empire, Zarkon has a son.  
  
It is less out of any desire for family or companionship, and more out of need for his empire as a whole. By now, the Galra Empire spreads over countless galaxies, ever growing, always moving. His people live across millions of warships and millions of colonies, and are beginning to feel the strain of their size. The Empire becomes massive to the point of bloating, yet its people are beginning to spread thin. Many of their ships and colonies are supplemented with more and more drones and sentries. They are in danger of fracturing.  
  
Zarkon cannot forget the goal of the empire is _unity_. He must unite the whole of the universe—but he cannot do even that if the empire itself cannot remain united. It lacks purpose, lacks stability. To its people it feels less like an empire, and more like a berserker horde, spreading relentlessly but destined to fall the moment its momentum or its leader does.   
  
Zarkon knows he is in no danger of dying of age, now, nor is he particularly concerned at this point by death in combat with anything short of the Devourer itself. He has surpassed the point of mere mortal limits and cannot be taken down so simply by a band of rebels or an unfortunate battle.   
  
But his people need stability—and a successor guarantees it. With another in line for his throne, the galaxies the Galra span become more than just territories gained in war—they become part of a vast kingdom, guaranteed to be protected even if its first emperor falls.   
  
Zarkon does not intend to fall, but he trains his son as though it is a possibility anyway. Lotor is one of the few he imparts the threats of the Devourer upon in the current age, stressing the importance of preparing for the final battle at all costs. He is put through ruthless training by both Zarkon and Haggar, designed to turn him into a worthy successor for the Galra empire and a warrior prepared to combat the void. He is made to memorize every story, every detail, every portent Haggar or her druids have ever had regarding the creature. He, too, receives quintessence infusions to make him stronger.   
  
Lotor takes all of it skillfully, and he is a fierce combatant and a dedicated warrior prince. But he is not particularly devoted to the cause of the void, or of preparing an army to face it. Zarkon knows he, too, does not believe the stories, no matter how dutifully he recites them. He finds them pointless, excuses for the expansion of the empire, dark tales to scare children. Perhaps he even thinks his father mad, although he is intelligent enough not to say so. He much prefers the stories of glory in combat, blood and battle, victory in strength.   
  
Zarkon finds him disappointing, in the end, but he will suit the needs of the empire, at least. Lotor knows the stories, even if he doesn’t believe them. He has not seen the Devourer yet, but should the day come when the battle has begun and Zarkon falls to the creature, Lotor will know them for truth, and he will know enough of what to do. He will be an acceptable figurehead for the Galra people to flock to, someone they will trust and follow in the same way they trust and follow Zarkon. He will be someone to keep them unified, to prevent them from fracturing after the millennia of work Zarkon has put into making them whole. He will have Haggar and her druids to guide him in the true fight.   
  
He will have to be enough, should Zarkon fall.   
  
But Zarkon has no intention of falling. Those burning eyes haunt him every night, waiting, _hungry,_ but Zarkon will not permit himself to lose to them.  
  
Five thousand years later, he is _still_ the black paladin. He will defeat this thing. He will protect the universe. It is what he is destined to do. 

* * *

  
  
At eight thousand years, Zarkon starts to despair that Voltron really _was_ destroyed.   
  
Most of the known universe is under his control by now. There are still entire sectors of space outside of the Galra Empire’s control, but it is only a matter of time. Yet despite all his colonizing, all his searching, he can find no trace of the Lions. There are still places in the universe left to search, but those places are growing fewer by the year.   
  
His bitterness for Alfor’s final decision slowly begins to slip into raw hatred. Alfor had no right to destroy Voltron—the one thing in the universe that could _save_ the universe from the threat that lies in wait for it. The Alteans were fools to trick him. They had no right to take such action; Voltron was not theirs alone to keep. It rightfully belongs to _all_ the worlds, and they stole it away out of spite. Perhaps it is better that vile race _has_ been destroyed, to keep them from wounding the universe still further.   
  
But Zarkon will do what he can to save it, no matter what handicaps they have placed upon him. He knows the threat, still. He remembers. He will protect, even if no one comprehends the truth of what he does.  
  
He pushes up Haggar’s timetable on finding even stronger forms of empowerment for his soldiers. Haggar has been busy, these past millennia. She has experimented with a wide variety of enhancements, all of which make a soldier far more powerful than they ever could be as a mere mortal. Various dietary measures and breeding programs, medications, and rigorous training schedules push all soldiers to their peak performance, enough to effortlessly bring down most armies in their path. Rituals and infusions to make soldiers stronger. Powerful prosthetic enhancements and augmentations. Experiments with quintessence. Drugs to enhance the body and mind. All are effective, to some degree.  
  
To Zarkon, it still isn’t enough. His soldiers are powerful enough to take on most mortal enemies, but they are still less than insects before the Devourer. They are physically strong, but they are only mortal. Their minds, no matter how rigorously trained, will never stand up to the crushing force of the void-creature’s mere presence alone. Nothing living truly can. Even seven millennia later, Zarkon can still _feel_ the terrible agony of the Devourer’s mere existence tearing his very body and soul apart.   
  
But there is another memory from that terrible day that he clings to. The Black Lion had resisted. Mechanical and magic, a soul in a powerful metal body, the Black Lion had been able to warn him of the presence of the Devourer, and pull Zarkon’s mind from being flayed alive long enough to act.   
  
Zarkon does not have the Lion. Even if it has not been destroyed, he cannot give his full army a fleet of Lions with which to attack. And Galra warships, however efficient in mundane war, do not have the magical essence and quintessence and soul of something with the willingness to fight.   
  
Zarkon does not have these things, and the technology to build more died with Altea. But perhaps he can have them build something similar.   
  
Haggar takes his memories and his orders and makes them a reality. She draws up plans for enhanced soldiers—physical metal shells, not much bigger than their sentries, but with enhanced abilities both magical and mundane. They are armed with the most advanced weaponry and powered by magic and quintessence. But they are not powered by artificial intelligence, like the sentries. Sentry AI is advanced, but it is not the same as _life_ —a soul, with instincts and motivations and drives. This is the core of what is needed for these empowered soldiers—and it is exactly what Haggar inserts, to pilot it.  
  
Early experimentations are not as responsive as Zarkon would like, and Haggar is frustrated with the results. But they both know they are on to something here—something powerful, something to enhance the bulk of their army, something that may have the potential to truly face down the void creature and live to speak of it.   
  
But there are so many factors at play that make or break the success of these soldiers. The soul must be exactly right—willing to fight, with drives and ambitions to fuel the shell. It must be at least somewhat familiar with the weaponry or the fighting style of the shell, to be truly effective. But it cannot be permitted to have so much willpower that it resists, or retains sentience—if it does it can rebel, or become confused, and cease to do anything useful at all. It cannot have a mind to flay apart; it must be mechanical enough to resist the void while living enough to be an effective soldier. The mechanics must be fluid enough to move like a living being while sturdy enough to not take damage like flesh does. The integration between magic and machine must be perfect. The shell must be strong enough to hold its essence pilot, and indestructible enough to protect it, because its ethereal pilot is both the strongest and most fragile part of the soldier all at the same time.  
  
It is a very delicate balance to maintain. Haggar struggles to find the exact mechanical specifications to merge with the exact, precise rituals. It is possibly the most daunting task Zarkon has ever given her. But she does not shy away from the order, and does everything she can to make his vision a reality. He expects nothing less.  
  
Slowly, as the centuries pass, the delicate formula begins to come together. The machinery and the magic begin to work fluidly. The pieces begin to fall into place. The fuel and resources needed to complete even one soldier are high, and the quintessence drain is enormous, but Zarkon’s empire covers millions of planets—they have the resources, and he will spare no expense on their creation if they are viable weapons. If a few planets are destroyed along the way to harvest the appropriate materials, it is a small loss that is meaningless compared to the rest of the trillions of planets in the galaxies. Necessary sacrifices, all for the greater good.  
  
Perhaps the most difficult ingredient becomes the essence to pilot the shell soldier. Fortunately, they have a resource for that as well: the gladiator arenas.  
  
The arenas were started centuries ago, and like every other aspect of his empire, they were designed with purpose. For his loyal subjects, it is a form of revenue and entertainment—a way to keep them controlled, while also serving as a warning for what happens to those too rebellious. It serves as an excellent location to make appearances, and make it abundantly clear he is still leading the empire and still very much involved. It is a show of power more subtle than destroying a warship or decimating a city single-handedly.   
  
These are all useful, but the true reason for the arenas is its combatants. It is very rare for any of its combatants to be there willingly—soldiers who desire to fight for glory and fame will have a better chance of doing so on the battlefield of his ever growing empire. The arenas are full of captured prisoners that have opposed him in one way or another, or soldiers punished for breaking strict military law that are too strong and too useful to have been outright executed.   
  
And these prisoners, these discharged soldiers, are excellent for study. The weaker races and individuals are slaughtered fairly quickly, making it clear they were useless as combatants to begin with, or better served for labor or special skills. Their brethren are moved accordingly, to better serve the empire in work camps and resource harvesting, preparing for the day the Devourer comes.   
  
Those who survive are skilled fighters, strong enough to make it to the upper levels of the gladiator fights—and they prove useful in a variety of different ways. Haggar and her druids select many of them for experimentation, trying new strength enhancements on the fighters to see how well their latest augmentations, magics, or drugs take, and to see how effective they are in a fight before using it on their own soldiers. Some enhancements are very effective, and immediately put into production in the empire’s forces. Others have unforeseen side effects that end in the deaths of the pit fighters, but it is hardly of consequence. They were always meant to die—their deaths have at least contributed to the Galra war machine.   
  
And now, those most powerful pit fighters also make the most useful essence pilots for for these experimental bio-mechanical soldiers. The soul of an individual, once ripped free and placed in the shell, cannot be returned; the body is dead, and the individual itself is a mere echo of what it once was. An echo, but an echo that still has some aspects of life and instinct to it, an echo of a warrior soul that survived against deliberately impossible odds. Refined in the shell soldier, that pit fighter no longer has any will to resist, but still has the strength and determination and skill they had in life, and are completely and totally devoted to the empire.  
  
They are not the Black Lion, but they are are as close a replica as the Galra Empire will ever be able to achieve, and they are powerful. Early tests on the battlefields prove that even a single shell soldier is capable of decimating entire scores of troops. They do not tire, and they are incapable of feeling fatigue or pain. They relentlessly pursue whatever task they are given by the druids, and do not stop until that task is accomplished or they are destroyed. They are small, but they are a massive step forward in the way the Galra prepare for the Devourer.   
  
They are not Voltron. But they are a start. And Zarkon will take absolutely any advantage he can find—or force—against those thousand burning eyes.

* * *

  
  
After nine thousand years, Zarkon begins to grow desperate.   
  
Nine millennia have passed, and while his empire is almost beyond comprehension in size, while he controls the vast majority of the known universe, it is still not _enough_. They are still not ready to fight that void-creature, for all Zarkon’s preparations. It is so vast. It is so patient. It can come at any moment, and they will never be quite ready enough. He can _feel_ the press of time on his shoulders, hear every single tick clicking down in his head, feel those thousand burning eyes in the darkness on him in his dreams and in his waking hours both. He can see the creature as sharply in his memory as he could the day he truly encountered it in the void; that is a memory that will never fade with time, no matter how much he almost wishes it would.  
  
He despairs, but his desperation drives him to action. He will _not_ fail. He will be _ready._ He will face that creature down and protect the universe, or he will die trying. He is the black paladin. He has _sworn_ it.  
  
He pushes harder. Culls the weakness from his own soldiers, from his conquered lands, from those under his control. Weakness is an infection, one they cannot afford to let hinder them. The weakest amongst them will destroy all of them unless they are removed. He orders more extreme projects—more reckless quintessence harvesting, more violent training regimes, harsher pushes for faster expansion of his empire. They _must_ be unified before the Devourer comes; the whole universe must be his so the whole universe will be ready to face it. They must be the strongest by any means necessary. No sacrifice is too great, not now. They may hate him for it if they must—he does not care, as long as they are strong enough to fight when the time comes.  
  
Haggar feels the press of time too, he knows. Her portents have grown stronger; the sickness at the roots of the universe spreads, so she says. He knows she, too, is desperate to find the strength to fight the void creature. She has never seen it—she cannot feel its gaze on her mind and soul always, the way Zarkon can. But her magics tell her of the danger all the same in ways he cannot comprehend.   
  
She and her druids turn to using void magic.   
  
Zarkon is furious when he first sees it—the soft glow of Altean casting turned a more sickly dark color, the same as the void itself. He breaks the neck of the first druid he sees using it, and is livid when Haggar comes to him with the same dark, crackling magic at her fingertips for their life infusions.   
  
“This is not what we are!” Zarkon snarls at her. He has never been so furious with Haggar, not in their nine thousand years of battle together. He is enraged enough to strike at her, but holds himself back, barely. “This is what we _fight!_ What traitorous action is this?”  
  
“The actions of one studying their enemy, so as to use their powers against them,” Haggar argues back. She does not raise her voice, but her eyes are narrowed, and her stance is firm. “It is no different than what your soldiers do when you study the fighters in the arena, sire.”  
  
“There is all the difference in the universe!” Zarkon roars. “The ones we study in the arena are still mortal. The Devourer is something else. The very essence of it is _wrong_. What _possible_ justification is there to turn to void magic—the thing we fight?”  
  
“Because we are not strong enough to fight it on our own!” Haggar snaps, raising her voice for the first time in millennia. She has _never_ dared to yell at her sworn emperor before, but now she does. And for the first time, Zarkon sees something else in her expression besides ruthlessness or loyalty. It’s _fear._ It’s fear, and for the first time Zarkon realizes the level of Haggar’s desperation to fight this thing—so strong that she is willing to turn to the essence of the void itself to combat it.   
  
He pauses.  
  
“We aren’t strong enough to fight it,” Haggar repeats, softer now, closer to her usual tone—but Zarkon can still see and hear that fear in her. “Our magics aren’t powerful enough. No matter what I and my druids do, no matter what rituals we create, no matter how much quintessence we harvest, we aren’t _strong_ enough. The sage magic of old was never meant to be used so forcefully. It isn’t _enough_. We will never be strong enough to fight this thing, and we still do not understand it enough to try.   
  
“But the void magic..it is _powerful,_ sire. Strong enough to enhance, strong enough to _fight_. It has the brute force and raw power needed, not the light touch and subtlety of Altean magics. Already I understand more about our foe than I ever did. I believe this may be the key to discovering how to fight it, by using its strengths against it.”  
  
She may not be wrong. After nine thousand years they still know so little about their foe; they are still so woefully unprepared for its attack. Stealing the knowledge of one’s opponents is common practice in warfare. Perhaps it can be useful here.  
  
But still…  
  
“You walk the blade’s edge, druid,” Zarkon says warningly. “I will not tolerate the abuse of this power. After nine millennia you have my trust—do not squander that. I will permit this study—but I will not permit you to destroy the Galra Empire from within because of your studies, either.”  
  
“I understand, Lord Zarkon,” Haggar says with a bow. “We will use this magic. It will _not_ use us. I will not allow it.”  
  
Haggar is true to her word—and as ruthless as ever, this time amongst her own followers. She is perhaps the most skilled caster Zarkon has ever encountered in his nine thousand years, and even she struggles to control the void magic at first. But she does master it, and soon it bends to her will. Many of her druids follow in her footsteps, taking after her teachings. Others do not, and soon find themselves consumed by the void magic instead, sanity waning—but they are not permitted to do so for long. Haggar is quick to execute any of her circle that fall. They use the void magic—she will not permit it to use them.   
  
And the trade off is exceptional. It is a dangerous magic, but Haggar is not wrong; it is _powerful_ , far beyond anything Zarkon could ever imagine. A single druid is now a match for an entire squadron of soldiers in combat. Complex rituals that once took nearly a full circle of druids now require only four or five. Quintessence refining, normally a task requiring six or seven druids, can now be handled by one alone. And the magical enhancements given to the gladiator fighters for testing, or the spells woven into the shell soldiers, are more powerful than anything they have been capable of so far. Already, Haggar has begun drawing up plans for larger shells and designs that, despite their significant size, can still be directed by a single essence pilot—a feat impossible before now.   
  
There is one loss, besides the occasional druid succumbing to the wild power they cannot quite control inside of them. The healing magic Altea had once been so notable for diminishes, the longer the druids practice their new arts. For millennia they have acted as medics and healers, using their extensive knowledge of the body and mind to both heal soldiers and practice their enhancements. But the ability is lost, until soon no druid is capable of real healing anymore—not even Haggar, the most skilled of them all.   
  
It is a grave loss, but one that does not put them at a complete disadvantage. The Galra have other methods of healing, technological and medicinal. It is an unfortunate loss, but the gains still far outweigh it. The Galra Empire is not meant to heal, anyway—it is meant to defend, to strike against the darkness, to destroy the void.  
  
It is a dangerous risk, a deadly trade off. But the risks taken grant more power, more strength, more knowledge, more chances to strike at the Devourer and truly wound it, when the battle comes. It is a dangerous risk, but Haggar controls it well, and Zarkon accepts that the benefits are too useful to deny.  
  
 _A necessary sacrifice. Not a one of us are immune, not even Haggar. Not even I._  
  
Her commitment to the cause is the final step in Zarkon’s own ultimate decision. He can no longer put off the inevitability that Voltron no longer exists. Over nine thousand years and the vast majority of the universe under his control, and not a single Lion has been found. It seems Alfor really _has_ destroyed the Lions. Zarkon cannot rely on finding Voltron, or using it as the strongest weapon in his arsenal against the Devourer.  
  
He curses Alfor a thousand times over for his idiotic decision that has damned the universe, but he refuses to let it stop him. If Voltron no longer exists, he must prepare an alternative weapon.   
  
He tells Haggar what he needs. Something powerful, something akin to Voltron itself, something he alone controls. Something that can channel his vast strength and power and experience, a weapon that he can use to fight at the head of the Galra Empire the day the void parts and the void creature pours free. Armor strong enough to shield him; a weapon strong enough to cut the void itself.   
  
“It will be difficult,” Haggar tells him, but she draws up the initial plans for it anyway. Something massive, something powered with druid rituals and vast amounts of harvested quintessence, something enhanced with enough void magic it can damage the originator of the void itself. It is a slow process to create, centuries in the making. There are constant revisions and modifications, with tests that are risky and often deadly, costing the resources and quintessence of dozens of planets. But his armor gradually takes shape, and Zarkon watches, restless and waiting.  
  
It is not Voltron. Voltron would be better. But Voltron is gone, and Zarkon will not stand idly by and let the void break into the world because of a foolish mistake made millennia ago. One way or another, when the Devourer comes, he will be armored, he will be armed, and he will be ready to destroy it with the full might of the universe, the Galra Empire, at his back. Those burning eyes will see the full might of the unified world, and be overcome by it. They will close forever, and Zarkon will at last be free of that waiting, hungry gaze, and so will the billions of unknowing galaxies he protects.  
  
He is the black paladin. That is his duty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, credit to the lovely curiosity-killed for the goooorgeous artwork.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to get into season one, shall we?

Ten thousand years after Zarkon first set his eyes upon the soul-rending gaze of the Devourer, things begin to change.  
  
At first, the changes are welcome. One of his mining colonies on an oceanic planet, tasked with harvesting valuable minerals beneath the ocean’s surface, reports a stunning discovery. They have found the Red Lion, safely encapsulated in its brilliant red particle barrier, hidden deeply underwater in a sealed cavern. Ten thousand years ago, the planet had been volcanic, but the passage of ten millennia led to the formation of massive oceans. The Red Lion is a being of fire, and had been so effectively hidden in its opposing element no trace of it could be picked up on sensors, until the mining crew stumbled across it unexpectedly.  
  
Zarkon is shocked by the find, but for the first time in millennia he feels the first traces of hope again. That the Red Lion still exists means Alfor did _not_ destroy the Lions ten thousand years ago. The rest of the paladins had not been there for the battle on Altea—because they had likely scattered the Lions on Alfor’s orders.  
  
Alfor was a damned fool to split Voltron up at all, but at least he’d had some degree of intelligence, enough to not destroy it. He could have cost the universe its very existence in the ten millennia that had passed. They are extraordinarily lucky that the Devourer did not come in that time. But Zarkon will remedy that now.  
  
He assigns the collection of the Red Lion to one of his most trusted commanders. Sendak is one of the rare few Galra in every new generation that have proven themselves so well in the ranks that Zarkon trains them personally, and he does not disappoint. Sendak is fierce and powerful in combat, but also clever and a skilled tactician, an excellent combination for Zarkon’s elite. He is also unquestioningly loyal, taking orders without hesitation and accepting Haggar’s modifications without complaint. Zarkon had awarded him with a sector on the outer ring of the empire to command the conquest of new solar systems. But he is one of the rare few Zarkon considers intelligent enough to safely retrieve the Lion, and trustworthy enough to bring it to Zarkon himself.  
  
Perhaps, when Voltron is fully assembled, Zarkon will make Sendak one of his new paladins. Perhaps he will even give him the Red Lion.  
  
In light of the recent discovery, Zarkon renews his scouting parties and doubles the number of resources given to them to search. Word is given to all crews and parties on resource missions to include searches for the Lions, in case another is cleverly hidden away right under their noses. If one Lion has been found, the others must be top priority. He has created countermeasures for Voltron’s destruction, but if Voltron _is_ still a potential weapon, it _must_ be in his control to fight this void creature.  
  
The renewed search is rewarded. Another of his resource harvesting parties, sent to examine a moon in a new solar system X-9-Y for potential resources, reports and odd energy reading in the system. It is very faint and very old, they say, but it does seem to be in line with the signatures reported in the briefing. Perhaps there is a Lion in the system? There are less than ten planets circling the star—perhaps it would not take long to search.  
  
Zarkon is pleased by the news. Another Lion, so soon after the first—perhaps things are finally turning in his favor for the battle against the Devourer.  
  
But things begin to fall apart almost immediately. Not even vargas after the news from the harvesting party is transmitted, there is an escape from the gladiator facilities. Haggar is livid, and fumes as she reports the results to Zarkon.  
  
“The escapee is Champion,” she growls in irritation.  
  
Champion, Zarkon recalls vaguely. Yes, the one that had been in the top ranks of the gladiator arena for nearly a full year. Zarkon had watched a few of the fighter’s battles himself, specifically to see how the latest techno-magical prototype prosthetic had handled after Champion had been selected to test it. For a pit fighter, he’d been quite skilled, defeating opponents significantly larger than him on a regular basis. He had adapted well to the prototype, enough to call it’s design a success, so that they could start equipping its like to actual soldiers. He’s also a very high profile prisoner—his escape is not good news.  
  
“He was scheduled for another enhancement,” Haggar adds, eyes narrowed. “I was planning to use him to test the integration of magic into species with natural non-magical properties. But he vanished during the procedure.” She looks furious. “Sire, my druids are interrogating the two soldiers present at the time of the disappearance now. They reported that the procedure had begun, but the medical technician attacked them. My druids also report a bomb had been set off during the time period shortly before an escape pod went missing. The technician is gone, and all of his records appear to have been falsified. There was a traitor in our organization.”  
  
Zarkon’s eyes narrow. Such a thing has not been uncommon in the ten millennia his empire has grown. Whenever rebel factions pop up, they always attempt to slip spies into the empire’s framework. But they usually don’t get far, and are discovered easily, especially with the druids and their magic. This one appears to have been well integrated.  
  
But it’s strange that they would target a gladiator fighter. Surely, if they were to give away their well-integrated position and lose a source of intelligence within the empire, they would take the risk for something more substantial. Champion doesn’t seem worth the risk, skilled fighter or no.  
  
Unless…  
  
Zarkon frowns. Something stirs at his memory. He recalls the most recent fight he’d seen from the pit fighter, yelling in defiance against his latest opponent. The voice is familiar. He knows he heard it outside of the ring, in a report for a discovery—  
  
_“Please, we come from a peaceful planet! We mean you no harm! We’re unarmed—“_  
  
Zarkon’s eyes widen. “Where did Champion hail from? Where was he discovered?” he snaps, leaning forward in his throne.  
  
Haggar blinks, but dutifully brings up Champion’s profile on a holo-screen. She flicks through medical records, combat rankings, and finally finds his initial capture information. Three primitive scientists, referring to themselves as ‘humans,’ discovered on the far moon of system X-9-Y.  
  
Haggar hisses as she, too, realizes. “The system the Lion may be in,” she says.  
  
Zarkon can feel his blood going cold. This is no coincidence. Whoever had been inside his organization, they had known. They had known almost as soon as his scouting reports had come in, and they had taken steps to prevent it. This will need to be investigated.  
  
But first…  
  
“Get a ship there _now_ ,” he snarls, slamming his hands down on the armrests in a fury. “I don’t care if we have to tear the planet apart to find that Lion. I want it in our possession before Champion can rally any of his people in defense of it.”  
  
But by the time the closest warship arrives, it is already too late. The Blue Lion is already flying out to meet it. “It attacked us and is heading out of the system,” the commander reports.  
  
“Follow that Lion and alert all ships in the area to intercept,” Zarkon orders immediately. “Capturing that Lion is your first and _only_ priority.” The warship should be able to out-speed the Blue Lion, and one Lion alone cannot fight an entire warship by itself. There is still time to recover the situation.  
  
But Zarkon feels a deep sense of unease all the same. A Lion of Voltron cannot attack independently in such a way, not without a fierce bond for its paladin already firmly established, and even then only when that paladin is in mortal peril. They have some independent movement and thought, but not to this degree. If the Blue Lion is striking out at a Galra warship, that means it has found a new pilot. Zarkon is not clear yet if that pilot is Champion, or some other human found on Earth, but the fact that the Lion has taken a new pilot at all is daunting. He will need to permanently remove that pilot and replace it with one of his own before too much damage has been done.  
  
And yet even that fails. The commander dutifully gives chase, but reports within only a few doboshes that the Blue Lion has completely disappeared—into a glittering blue wormhole.  
  
_Damn it, Alfor!_ Zarkon rages in his head. Ten thousand years later and still all these countermeasures. Did that loathsome king want the universe to die? Zarkon fumes, and digs his claws so hard into his throne it leaves gashes.  
  
“I want word out to every single ship and commander in the Galra Empire,” Zarkon orders Prorok. “ _Find. That. Lion._ And _you_ ,” he adds, gesturing to another soldier, “Deliver a message to Haggar. She is to drop whatever project she is working on and begin divining for the location of that Lion. _Now._ ”  
  
They scurry to obey. Zarkon wants to pace, but forces himself to sit again, fuming in his head. He can feel the clock counting down, but the ticks seem faster now, more urgent. They need Voltron. _He_ needs Voltron. And he will not allow anyone else to stand in his way, much less a pack of primitive humans and a gladiator prisoner. 

* * *

  
  
Haggar does not find the exact location of the Blue Lion, although she does confirm with her magics it is active again.  
  
Instead, she brings other news: Alfor’s daughter lives.  
  
Zarkon is not sure how she’s survived ten thousand years. He doubts that she has been using quintessence infusions the way Haggar does; Haggar had claimed so many years ago the practice was forbidden amongst Alteans. He’s not sure if this is another countermeasure of Alfor’s either, although he knows Alfor would have done anything to spare his daughter from the dangers of ten thousand years ago. If there was a way to preserve his daughter, Zarkon is sure Alfor would have taken it.  
  
In the end, the why doesn’t matter. Princess Allura will almost certainly be the means to finding the final Lions, and Voltron is essential. Even if the Blue Lion has not gone to rejoin her—and somehow Zarkon doubts that—they can use her abilities to find wherever it has fled to later. Haggar will drag the answers from her one way or another. The humans and escaped prisoner will be taken and re-integrated into the ring. Champion will receive extra punishment for his actions.  
  
Sendak is the closest battle fleet commander to the location Haggar manages to divine. He has only just collected the Red Lion, after countless spicolian movements unburying it from beneath the oceans of the planet it was found on, and had been on his way to return it to Zarkon’s central command. Zarkon is hesitant to send the Red Lion directly to Princess Allura, but ultimately has no choice. If she is given time to flee, she may disappear, and the directions to all the Lions disappear with her. Zarkon cannot afford to lose them. Sendak is skilled and strong—he should be able to manage the task.  
  
And Zarkon will have Voltron again. And he will finally feel at least a little more prepared for the day the Devourer comes. 

* * *

  
  
Voltron is reformed.  
  
Voltron is reformed, and it is not by Zarkon’s hand.  
  
“We had them, Emperor Zarkon,” Sendak reports. He looks battered and injured, as does his lieutenant, and the connection flickers constantly from the hasty repair of their computers. It is night on the planet of Arus, but even so Zarkon can see details in the background—and the devastation is incredible. Broken sentries, a totaled warship—the scenery shows an unmitigated disaster.  
  
“All five of the Lions were in my tractor beam,” Sendak continues. “We had decimated the Castle of Lions’ particle barrier. The day was ours. And then…Voltron appeared.”  
  
Zarkon feels the first flickers of dread. “You are certain?” he growls. “The Lions did not merely escape the beam?”  
  
Sendak shakes his head. “They formed a man shape,” he reports. “They became a single unit. It devastated my fleet before we could even act. I am grievously sorry for the loss, Emperor Zarkon. I am fully prepared to accept whatever punishment you see fit for failing you.”  
  
Zarkon is tempted to mete out harsh punishment indeed for the loss. He is furious, and wants something to take out his ire on. But he restrains himself. Even battered, Sendak is too valuable a commanding officer to throw away so casually. He is still well placed to keep an eye on Voltron.  
  
And truth be told, Zarkon cannot entirely fault him for failing to seize victory in the outcome of that battle. Sendak is many things, but he is certainly not weak, and he has proven so time and time again. Even directed by five inexperienced pilots, Voltron is more than a match for a single warship, and none of his soldiers have ever been prepared for how to battle it. In ten thousand years, it has never been a possible threat—they have always been prepared for the coming of the Devourer, not the return of Voltron.  
  
“Stand by,” he orders instead. “Be prepared for future orders. Watch Voltron. If any news comes, I want it immediately. I want to know who each of those pilots are. Anything you can find.”  
  
“Of course, Emperor Zarkon,” Sendak says, saluting with his natural arm to his chest. “I believe several of the pilots boarded my ship prior to forming Voltron to steal the Red Lion. Our security feeds may have taken images of them. I will see if Haxus can recover some of the images and deliver them.”  
  
“Do so immediately,” Zarkon orders, and closes the feed.  
  
The news is disturbing, and Zarkon considers it with a growing sense of dread. That Voltron has formed and taken a stand against the Galra Empire is dangerous enough. It is a powerful weapon that _must_ be put to use for the Empire, for the universe. It is the only thing that stands even a chance against the might of those burning, soul-cutting eyes, against the vast presence in the void. It must be recovered. Zarkon cannot afford to leave it in other hands.  
  
But the formation of Voltron indicates something even more disturbing. Because Voltron cannot be formed without the Black Lion. And it cannot be formed without the presence of five pilots.  
  
The Black Lion has taken another paladin.

  
  
He’s hit with a numb sense of shock, at first. The Black Lion had promised to wait, the last time he had spoken with him. He had been uneasy about the battle, but he had trusted Zarkon absolutely. He understood the real threat. He understood the need to prepare. He would bow to no other, partner with no other.  
  
But he has. He _has_ , and gradually that numb shock melts away, instead transforming into a burning, sick feeling of betrayal in his heart. He has not felt this offended and turned upon since the day Alfor and the other paladins declared him crazy, revoked his leadership ten thousand years ago. And this digs deeper than even that pain. Zarkon had always known the other paladins had never believed him. That they had turned upon him was regrettable, it was painful, it was foolish, but it was not surprising. They had never really understood the true threat.  
  
But the Black Lion _had._ The Black Lion had believed him when no others did. The Black Lion had understood the danger. The Black Lion had stood by him resolutely when no others would. Zarkon had been so sure that the moment the Black Lion resurfaced he would come to Zarkon without hesitation, without question. They would be rejoined, and together they would fight the darkness of the void that they alone had witnessed, that they alone had felt.  
  
But the Black Lion has taken another as his pilot. And in the ten thousand years of battle and preparation, in ten millennia of sleeplessness and exhaustion and pushing himself far past his limits just to be ready, in all those years of being vehemently hated despite all he has done for the universe, Zarkon has _never_ felt a wound stab so deeply as that news does at that very moment.  
  
The feeling of betrayal and dread grows when, four vargas later, Sendak finally transmits the images they were able to recover from their destroyed systems. The video feeds are grainy and poor quality, but enough to make out a few details—namely, the familiar suits of armor of the Paladins of Voltron. The yellow and blue pilots never make an appearance in the images. But there is a shot of a human in red and white fighting half a dozen sentries in front of the Red Lion’s particle barrier. And in another video, a short human in the green paladin armor and a taller human in the black paladin armor— _his armor_ —fight a small group of sentries, while several prisoners escape in the background.  
  
Zarkon’s eyes widen when he sees the taller figure’s hand light up a brilliant purple-white, the same color as the Galra enhancements given to his best soldiers. He just barely makes out the scar across the figure’s nose, beneath his visor. The rest of the details are hidden by the helmet, but Zarkon recognizes the fighting style and the weaponized right arm as Champion’s.  
  
Champion has taken _his_ armor, _his_ place. Champion is the new pilot the Black Lion has chosen. It was _Champion_ that was able to lead these other inexperienced humans into battle against a Galra fleet, and lead them into forming Voltron.  
  
And suddenly, Zarkon feels so many things at once he can barely comprehend them all.  
  
Betrayal comes first, stronger this time. The Black Lion has chosen, not just another pilot, but _that_ one, an inexperienced fledgling incapable of truly comprehending the full might of the creature he now pilots. He has turned on the one being that has been through hundreds of battles with him, who understands the duties and responsibilities of the black paladin better than any other alive. The Black Lion has chosen this thing instead, and the wound digs deeper still.  
  
And what a choice! Betrayal gives way to rage as Zarkon considers his would-be successor. That the Black Lion has chosen _Champion_ , an unknown from a backwater planet in the middle of an unimportant system, is frustrating. That the Black Lion chooses the one individual who has ever managed to thwart the Galra Empire is insulting and infuriating. That it’s a prisoner deemed useful for experimentation and combat testing that suddenly takes the head of the most powerful weapon in the universe is galling. Champion was never meant to be a _paladin._ At best, he would have made a suitable candidate as an essence pilot, using his skills and abilities to fight the Devourer.  
  
And that…that is the true crux of his rage, Zarkon realizes. Champion will not fight the presence he _should._ He has already made it clear, along with his fellow pilots, that his war is with the Galra Empire. Voltron will be used as a weapon, but not against the Devourer. It will be used to break the unity of the universe that Zarkon has been so carefully cultivating for ten thousand years—to create the two-front war that Zarkon has done everything he can to avoid from the beginning.  
  
They will do so because they do not understand the importance of his mission. They do not understand that there is a greater threat, with stakes higher than they can possibly comprehend if Zarkon fails. And they will try to break the empire, believing themselves to be defending the universe when they are destroying it.  
  
And so Zarkon feels, just barely, the first traces of _fear._ Not because he fears these pilots, or Champion, on their own. Champion was a skilled fighter in the arena, but Zarkon could put him down with barely a thought in one on one combat. The others cannot be much more skilled than that. Zarkon has ten thousand years of experience at his disposal; based on reports, their people have barely discovered space travel. They are not a threat to him personally, not even with Voltron. He knows it far better than those fledglings ever will.  
  
No, he fears them not because of their abilities, but what they might _do_ with them. How they might drive a wedge into the universe, break the unity of the Empire in some false search for justice. That they might fracture the world so completely it is child’s play for the Devourer to consume them all, and crush their souls and minds and very essences into nothingness with its mere presence alone.  
  
And most of all, he fears Champion, not for his abilities but for his ignorance—and his potential.  
  
Because the Black Lion is still they key to everything. The Black Lion is the only being capable of opening the doorway to the void; it is the key to letting the Devourer into their world. In Zarkon’s hands, the hands of a capable pilot that knows the threat and knows how to use each of the Black Lion’s abilities to their fullest extent, this is an advantage. It will let him watch and wait, and it will let him be prepared. It will let him keep the key out of the hands of anyone who would use it poorly, who would willingly let the void creature into their midst.  
  
But in the hands of a fledgling pilot, it is a ticking time bomb. Especially one such as Champion.  
  
Because for all of Zarkon’s raging, his fury, his betrayal, his inexplicable _hatred_ of this new pilot, he is well aware Champion is not stupid. He comes from a primitive race, but he learns quickly. Haggar’s reports of his adaptation to the techno-magical prosthetic, and his repeated successes in the gladiator ring, are proof enough of that. Already he and his team have learned to form Voltron. It is only a matter of time before he starts learning how to use the Black Lion further, delves into his deeper abilities, learns more of his secrets.  
  
And one of those secrets is the void itself, and the ability to plane shift into it.  
  
And Champion, for all his prowess in the arena, for all his quick learning, even despite his first formation of Voltron, is not prepared for that. He does not understand the threat, and he cannot fathom the danger. His mind and body both are not strong enough to survive under that excruciating pressure of the void creature’s very presence alone. Zarkon knows, because he had spent _years_ training as a paladin of Voltron, honing his mind, body, and bond with his Lion to razor focus, and the Devourer had still nearly shredded his soul to pieces in the mere doboshes he had been in its presence. Champion will not even survive an encounter with _Zarkon_. The Devourer will consume him.  
  
And more than anything, Zarkon fears that happening. He cares little for the fate of Champion one way or another—although he would not wish for that agonizing memory of being pulled apart on the level of both body and soul on even his worst enemies, even _this_ fool. But he does fear that the human will have _just_ enough potential to unlock the ability, but not yet enough strength or skill to control it.  
  
And that will be enough to put the key to the lock, and open the door to invite the Devourer into their unsuspecting world.  
  
Zarkon cares little for the fate of Champion. But letting him keep the Black Lion is tantamount to letting an infant play with an ion cannon. Almost certainly the child will kill themselves through ignorance—but the devastation they will wreak on the world around them through their own lack of understanding is unforgivable.  
  
He cannot allow it to happen. He _must_ protect the universe—even from its so-called defenders.  
  
He must have the Black Lion back. If nothing else, if he cannot recover the rest of Voltron, the Black Lion is _essential._ He cannot let this infantile fool play with forces he cannot comprehend. He cannot let this fledgling pilot destroy the entire universe because he does not know the danger. Zarkon will kill him _personally_ if he has to, to ensure that threat is eradicated.  
  
He gives the orders. His Empire prepares its next attacks. And through it all, Zarkon can now hear not one, but _two_ ticking clocks in his head. The first is, as always, the pressing need to prepare before the final battle comes, encouraged always by the thought of those thousand burning eyes watching him, waiting for him, _hungry._  
  
But the second, much faster, more urgent still, is the ever diminishing countdown until the moment the new black paladin eradicates them all. 

* * *

  
  
Haggar brings him a plan to reclaim Voltron mere quintents after it defeats Sendak.  
  
“I have been working on perfecting something,” she says, and tells him of her latest plans for the shell soldiers. In the centuries since Haggar and her druids accepted the void magic, they have been producing stronger and larger armored mechanical soldiers. Each one is driven by a single essence pilot, and each is equipped with weaponry and abilities strong enough to decimate whole armies.  
  
But this one is by far the largest yet. It is still a prototype, but it stands as large as Voltron itself, a massive armored warrior only awaiting a soul to pilot it. If successful, this beast will be the first of hundreds, perhaps thousands, in Zarkon’s army to take against the Devourer itself.  
  
It is no Voltron—it can hardly compare to a fully weaponized Voltron. But it will be strong, and useful in the fight against the void all the same.  
  
And perhaps, against five inexperienced pilots that don’t understand the true strength of their new weapon, it can defeat Voltron as well.  
  
Haggar devotes all of her time and resources to completing the beast. She outfits it with new weaponry, and selects an essence pilot with purpose—the first gladiator Champion ever defeated. The gladiator is well aware that he is being selected to kill the Champion—Haggar ensures it. That vengeance and hatred will drive its essence further, once it is placed within the beast, and give the creature additional power and motivation to fuel it even more. Zarkon watches the ritual himself, as she skillfully combines magic and technology to transfer the prisoner’s essence into the massive structure.  
  
It appears formidable. There is a very strong chance it will take care of the job and destroy the new pilots, and he can reclaim Voltron for himself.  
  
The beast is delivered easily. The new paladins are not even trying to hide. They are still on Arus, according to Sendak, training every quintent with Voltron. The beast arrives on schedule, and it fights as programmed, driven by Galra coding and natural vengeance and rage from its essence pilot.  
  
It fails.  
  
It fails through bad luck more than anything else, Zarkon realizes, after watching the feeds of the battle transmitted back from the beast’s transport ship. The new paladins can form Voltron, but the fight had been clumsy and full of mistakes. They are still too green—they still don’t understand how to work as a single unit, or understand the true might of the weapon they have at their fingertips. If the red paladin had not discovered the blazing sword at the very last minute, the creature would have decimated them.  
  
It is galling that such a powerful beast had been destroyed through sheer dumb luck. Haggar is certainly furious, and already works on the construction of a newer, more powerful one.  
  
But they don’t understand yet what they have. And while that is frightening, to know children play with a weapon of Voltron’s caliber, it is also reassuring. There is still time to take it from them.  
  
There is still time before they destroy the entire world through ignorance.

* * *

  
  
Sendak is nearly more successful than the creature ever was.  
  
Eager to prove himself after his disastrous defeat, he accepts Zarkon’s challenge to rise from the mud and regain favor with vigor. Several quintents pass before Zarkon hears from him again, but when Sendak does make contact, it is from the Castle of Lions itself.  
  
“My mission is complete,” Sendak tells him confidently. “I’ve captured the Altean Castle, along with all of the Voltron Lions. I am currently preparing for launch, and will be delivering them all to you shortly.”  
  
“This news is most pleasing,” Zarkon tells him. Sendak has more than made up for any combat losses with this, and proven himself strong. “You have done your duty. _Vrepit sa._ ”  
  
“ _Vrepit sa_ ,” Sendak returns with a salute, and the feed cuts.  
  
He does not hear from Sendak again, and the Castle of Lions does not arrive. His lieutenant, Haxus, also does not make contact.  
  
Zarkon knows better than to think Sendak would disappear with the Voltron Lions on his own. Sendak has always been intensely loyal, one of the few of this generation of soldiers Zarkon trusts unquestionably. He is a being of victory or death, just like the proudest of the Galra warriors. Proof of victory has not come. There is only one alternative explanation.  
  
Zarkon is livid. Sendak had been a valuable solider, useful in the unification of the worlds, and with the strength to have been useful against the void, as well. The new paladins are meddling further in things they do not understand.  
  
And still those two countdowns click away in his head, and the darkness of the void comes ever closer.

* * *

  
  
Voltron and its new paladins seem to vanish for a time. Without Sendak, there is no one to report on the whereabouts and movements of the Lions, and their exact purpose is unclear. Zarkon wants more than anything to chase them—but there are also other duties to attend to.  
  
He cannot forget his mission. Voltron is a necessity for it, but preparing the universe for the coming of the Devourer is also vital. And gathering the power necessary to overcome Voltron is of equal importance.  
  
That is why, when Haggar informs him her Komar experiment is finally prepared, he agrees to test it. He trusts Haggar—she alone knows the true threat they prepare to face in the universe, and she alone knows what it will take to defeat it. Even his most devoted generals do not know the real threat they face, nor would they believe it if they did.  
  
And as much as Zarkon would like to move his own fleet to the last known location of the Lions, as much as he itches to reclaim Voltron and take the Black Lion back once again, he knows their time is better spent gathering energy. If the Komar is a success, they will be able to collect an incredible amount of power within a very short timespan. And that will be power they can use to strengthen themselves still further, to overpower Voltron and prepare for the Devourer.  
  
The Komar is nearly a millennia of theorizing and experimentation in the making, and something not even possible until Haggar and her druids accepted void magic into their casting and began to bend its powers to their own will. It has been a work in progress with countless failures and partial successes. But now, as he watches, it is a success. It merges technology and ritual seamlessly, and even as he observes, he watches the life drain out of the test planet, until it is dulled of all color and vibrancy.  
  
A necessary sacrifice, of course. The loss of one planet is minuscule compared to the devastation that will be unleashed if the new paladins are permitted to continue in their naivety. This power will serve the Galra Empire well in defending the entire universe—not just one small piece of it.  
  
With this much power so swiftly gained, mining and colonizing planets—a time consuming process—can be eradicated completely for all quintessence harvesting projects. Those efforts can be redirected throughout his empire in other ways—obtaining natural resources, expanding unification in uncharted areas…and, naturally, capturing Voltron.  
  
Haggar uses the newly gained quintessence in her next creation, another beast of Voltron size. The powerful investment makes a creature likewise far more powerful than the last, something Voltron will truly struggle with. It is studded with dozens of eyes and an entirely new set of weaponry. This time, Haggar chooses an essence pilot completely unrelated to any of the new paladins, to make it completely unpredictable.  
  
_Try to fight this creature,_ Zarkon thinks, as he watches the ritual, watches the power of Haggar’s magic glint off its dozens of eyes. For a second he sees the burning eyes of the void creature instead, looming out of the darkness. He wills himself not to react. _If you cannot even fight this thing, you are useless in the war against the Devourer._  
  
And there is one more use of the newly gathered power the Komar provides. Because when the druids channel it into Zarkon as if they were doing infusions, and he concentrates deeply on his old life, on his old senses, on the Black Lion—he finds his senses stretching far across the galaxies to find the head of Voltron. Always before, he has been able to sense his own Lion when he is active and close by, but never at this distance. But with so much raw power to fuel him, he is able to sense the Lion from galaxies away, and still feel the Lion in a corner of his mind, just barely enough to know his connection still exists.  
  
It is exhilarating. And it is relieving, to know that Champion has not been able to cut him from the Black Lion completely. To know the Black Lion still has some sort of willing connection to him, however weak it may be.  
  
_I will reclaim you,_ he tells the Lion, although at this distance there is no communication. _I am coming. Soon the universe will be safe again._

* * *

  
  
The beast is sent. The beast fails.  
  
This time, Zarkon is livid. The beast fails, but not because of Voltron’s prowess, according to the transmitted feeds. Voltron is improving, but they are still too green, too weak. Even discovering the Yellow Lion’s shoulder cannon could not save them against the creature. If the Balmera itself had not risen up to fight, Voltron would have been decimated.  
  
These new paladins lack skill or experience, but their luck borders on the absurd, and it is the one thing that can hardly be planned for. Zarkon has never been more furious.  
  
They disappear from the Balmera shortly thereafter. None of his soldiers or ships can track down where they’ve gone; there is no indication of what their next target will be. Zarkon is anxious to pinpoint them again—after _two_ lucky victories, he is no longer content with leaving the defeat and capture of Voltron to others. He will deal with them himself. Every tick they waste is another tick counting down in the clocks in Zarkon’s mind, for the coming of the Devourer and the moment these paladins escort it unwittingly into their world.  
  
He cannot let this continue any longer. He must defeat them, now.  
  
But his druids do not have the energy to boost his senses again. The pure quintessence of a full planet was used up completely by the second beast and his search then. He is irritated with this oversight, but orders the collection of more raw quintessence immediately to supplement the search. They _will_ have the resources needed and they _will_ find Voltron.  
  
But as fate would have it, there is no such need after all. A few spicolian movements after the Balmera incident, Voltron comes to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, the art is by the lovely curiosity-killed (and man, is this one ever gorgeous!)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW, sorry this one is so late guys! That's all my bad. ~~I mean technically it's still Friday where I'm at..for another half an hour...~~

It begins with an unexpected transmission from a transport ship. They claim, of all things, that they have captured Princess Allura herself. Zarkon isn’t inclined to believe it, but within two doboshes of that transmission, one of Haggar’s druids contacts her from a universal station in a close quadrant. They report a battle against the new red paladin—one that had been going in the druid’s favor until the Green Lion had arrived to extract him.   
  
The new paladins had made their move—and had lost one of their own in the process. That is all Zarkon needs to turn this situation in his favor.  
  
The transport brings the princess to him directly, and Haggar personally oversees the collection of the valuable prisoner from the ship. Haggar is not fond of the royal family of Altea even ten thousand years later, not after they had so easily disregarded her warnings of the impending danger at the roots of the universe. But she _is_ the only one capable of restraining a sacred Altean from the royal blood if it comes to it, and Zarkon is not sure how much of her own power Princess Allura has discovered yet. Alfor had been capable of some truly magnificent feats when he set his mind to it. His daughter is a prisoner they must be careful with. Haggar knows this as well, and grudgingly puts up with the order.  
  
But Princess Allura does not appear to have discovered most of her own abilities. When she is brought before Zarkon, she runs forward to try and strike at him like a common soldier, rather than reaching for any magical skills. “You _monster!_ You _destroyed_ Altea—“  
  
Zarkon feels irritation at the accusation, but keeps his face impassive as he turns to face her. _Altea was a necessary sacrifice for the greater good_ , he considers saying, but discards the idea. Princess Allura has never known the true threat, and will never acknowledge his reasoning, and frankly he does not expect her to. Let her think him a monster. He has been set on this course for ten thousand years to protect the entire universe; her words will make no difference now.   
  
Haggar easily halts the princess’ attack, but knows better than to seriously injure her. The princess cannot be harmed until he is certain he has all five Voltron Lions in his control once more. But Haggar does use her magic to lift the princess into the air, and cut off her breath just long enough to be frightening, before dropping her.   
  
Princess Allura gasps, but when she looks up again there is still fire in her eyes and fury in her words. “Voltron is going to put an _end_ to your empire!” she snarls, defiant.   
  
“No,” Zarkon answers. He will not let it. Voltron will _try_ to break the empire, but it must remain unified; Zarkon will accept nothing less. And Voltron will be his, because the universe needs the strongest weapon to defend it, and that is Voltron’s purpose. But she won’t understand that either.   
  
“It will only make me more powerful,” he says instead. “Your father knew that as well as I. That is why he led me to believe he destroyed it all these years ago.” Fool that he was, Zarkon thinks to himself contemptuously, but he keeps that to himself. Princess Allura will never know how closely her father came to destroying the entire universe, either. She will never accept that truth, not when it will be so much easier to place the blame on the empire. There is no point in trying to explain it.   
  
Princess Allura looks unsure when her threat is so easily disregarded. Zarkon takes the moment to add, “But now your new paladins will come for you.” He knows they will, because ten thousand years ago in another life, were he and his own paladins in the same situation, he would not have hesitated to do the same. These new pilots are paladins enough to command Voltron—but it also makes them very predictable. “They will deliver Voltron to me. And with it, the key to unimaginable power.”  
  
The key to power. And the key to the void, safely in his hand, kept away from any that would misuse it—however unintentionally.   
  
Princess Allura still looks unsure about his declaration—confused, but perhaps starting to see what a terrible mistake has been made, or how dangerous it would be for her new paladins to strike. But it is too late. Zarkon knows that already.  
  
“I tire of this conversation,” he says, turning away. He has seen enough. Part of him had hoped that perhaps she would be responsive to his warning of the Devourer in a way her father hadn’t been. The princess would have made a good ally against the void. But within only a few doboshes of conversation he can tell she will never accept his warnings. She has already decided who the monster is. And she will fight it to her dying breath—Princess Allura always was a fighter in that regard.  
  
Very well then. She is an enemy of the empire, by her own choice. Zarkon will use her to bait in the new paladins, he will take back Voltron, and then he will have her disposed of. If she is not with the empire, then she is a threat to it, a weakness that must be removed before it infects the rest of the universe and endangers every living being that exists.   
  
It’s a necessary sacrifice, to prevent the Devourer from taking them all. 

* * *

  
  
Voltron does come, just as Zarkon expects. Zarkon lets them come, despite Prorok’s urging, and activates the solar barrier to keep them trapped inside his central command.   
  
Voltron will not escape him this time. He _will_ finally reclaim it, and this time he will attend to the task personally.   
  
His soldiers scramble their fighters and attack with their warships, but this is intended as a distraction tactic more than anything. The true attack comes in the form of Haggar and several of her strongest druids, gathered at the ritual deck of Zarkon’s personal ship. They use the quintessence of several planets, harvested with the Komar over the past several spicolian movements, for their ritual.   
  
Zarkon is present too, wearing his specialized armor for the rituals. The ports on the armor allow him to absorb and channel quintessence at an astonishing rate, translating the energy into a form he can use even as a non-caster. He takes his place in the center of the complex ritual circles and watches the space battle in the distance. He watches Voltron come steadily closer, striking out in a blaze of glory and determination as it heads undeterred for Zarkon’s ship.  
  
It is a wonder to watch Voltron in action, in person. Even ten thousand years later, even directed in such an inexperienced manner by juvenile pilots, it is a awe-inspiring sight to behold: an incredible amalgamation of technology and magic, a being of sophistication and power and strength all in one. It is a glorious, shining weapon, a beacon of hope in the darkness, the essence of the defender of the universe.  
  
A pity that it is being used to destroy it. That shining weapon should never have been turned against the universe. Voltron is by definition a being of _unity_ ; it should not be used to break it. From the day Zarkon set his sights on those thousand burning eyes in the void, he has known what Voltron’s true purpose is for—to put those burning eyes out forever, and to fight back the darkness. With Voltron’s current pilots, it will never be used to blind the Devourer.  
  
But Zarkon will remedy that, soon.  
  
Voltron comes closer. Soon it is within range. Haggar gives the command, and the druids begin channelling their magic into Zarkon’s specialized armor, into the ritual runes all across the deck. He _feels_ the strength of his mind and body growing in a wild burst of power, so strong he can barely contain it within his bones, beneath his skin. The energy crackles off of him, but he focuses it, uses it to give his mind power, to bolster his senses—and to empower his bond with the Black Lion.   
  
The power swells in an overwhelming cacophony of crackling energy in his mind, but he can control it. He reaches out to his bond with the Black Lion, follows the trail from his own mind to that of the head of Voltron.   
  
And he slams his own will like a wall between the Black Lion, and that of its new paladin.   
  
Voltron freezes in mid-strike with its sword. Zarkon can feel the new paladin’s confusion and surprise, enough to know Champion doesn’t even understand what has happened yet. Zarkon takes advantage of that confusion, and pushes his will still further. Voltron is a creature of unity, but it unifies on the Black Lion, and his pilot is the focal point for its formation. Overwhelm him, and the rest of the Lions and their pilots will be equally helpless.   
  
It is a weakness in Voltron he has been aware of for more than ten thousand years, ever since _he_ led his own paladins as the head of Voltron. Such a powerful weapon, but so fragile inside, so reliant on mental strength and internal structure. So dependent on the will of its pilots to remain whole. Ten millennia ago, it had been one of the most difficult of the black paladin’s responsibilities: holding the formation, keeping each of its pieces functioning together. And ten millennia ago, the difficulty of that task had been Zarkon’s most closely guarded secret.   
  
It holds true even now. _All_ of Voltron freezes, and Zarkon works his empowered will into the confused mess of weak, inexperienced thoughts. He seizes control of Voltron’s joined actions, as though he were currently directing the head. He forces the sword to sheathe, and it disperses in a shower of sparks. He can feel the distant confusion of the new paladins, unaware of what is happening. They try to move, but he forces Voltron to remain frozen still, and their minds remain in a deadlock. Voltron cannot decipher that there is one extra mind in its unity matrix, not when it is a mind familiar to Voltron’s makeup of old. It cannot determine _which_ black paladin is holding the focus anymore, so it becomes frozen.   
  
Zarkon feels the confusion of the pilots progress to alarm, to fear. They don’t understand what is happening, and that frightens them. The strongest is the new black paladin’s response; his mind fights, scrabbles to regain control, but he doesn’t know yet what he is trying to regain control _from_. Zarkon can feel that mind realizing it’s no longer able to hold Voltron in focus, but it still doesn’t understand _why._   
  
Pathetic. These minds are so infinitesimally small compared to his own, even _without_ the extra power the druids give him. They are so naive, so _weak._ They could never wield Voltron as it _should_ be used. Voltron will _never_ realize its true purpose as long as it is in their fledgling hands.   
  
_You’re a fool to bring Voltron here,_ he thinks in contempt. He feels the black paladin’s mind respond in shock; that other mind must have heard him. It struggles to fight harder.  
  
Too little, too late. Zarkon forces his will still further into the depths of the Voltron unity matrix, and commands it to deconstruct, just like he has hundreds of times before ten thousand years ago.  
  
He can tell Voltron is confused; he can sense the bewilderment of the Voltron Lions. For a moment, Voltron remains rigid and unmoving, as the combined weak orders of the paladins deadlock with Zarkon’s stronger will. But Zarkon draws further from the energy of the druids, and slams power into his command. Voltron finally recognizes his dominant mind in the matrix, and obeys.   
  
Voltron comes apart, and once again becomes five Lions.   
  
“Activate tractor beam,” he orders immediately. The order feels distant; he is still concentrating hard on the Black Lion. But his men understand, and a purple glow suffuses the drifting Black Lion in the distance a moment later, now close enough to catch. The other Lions roar off to meet fighters and warships in combat, and none of them seem to realize they have lost one of their number.  
  
Once again it’s an inexperienced and altogether pathetic rookie mistake, to lose one of their own through sheer ignorance. But it works all the better for Zarkon—there are less distractions to deal with. He takes in all the power he can from the druids, and delves his mind fully into the bond of the Black Lion, seeing and feeling as he comes ever closer.   
  
This close, without the distraction of Voltron and other minds, Zarkon can more clearly sense the Black Lion and his new pilot both. The Black Lion sends feelings of alarm and confusion, dismay and unease. He is concerned for his new pilot, and disturbed by Zarkon’s attacks. The new paladin is overwhelmed by the assault, struggling to regain control, but his mind is being crushed in between the Black Lion’s great mind and the force Zarkon uses to reach him.   
  
This mind is so _infantile,_ Zarkon realizes, now that he sees it closely. Zarkon has been alive more than ten thousand years. He has seen and experienced more than a thousand lifetimes, understands the vastness of the universe, knows the meaning of sacrifice and the darkness in the world. Zarkon’s mind is _strength_ , it is _power_ , it is _discipline_. But this mind is young—bright, naive, full of grand concepts of justice and righteousness, but oh so weak, so untempered. Zarkon can see where it may have had potential a a black paladin, why the Black Lion might have chosen it as a new pilot, but it isn’t strong enough for the burden. Even now, Zarkon’s mental assault through the Black Lion to paralyze the controls is enough to cause the new pilot physical pain, and Zarkon can feel him crying out at the attack.   
  
The Black Lion’s consciousness surges forward to try and shield his pilot. _Stop this, paladin,_ the Lion calls to Zarkon. _Do not harm a brother of the order. That is not what Voltron_ is.   
  
_He is no fellow paladin of mine,_ Zarkon calls back. The new pilot does not hear him; this conversation is between himself and the Black Lion alone, hidden within the speed of thought. _He is not strong enough to fight the Devourer. He is a weak paladin. He cannot even resist me. What hope does he have against the void? Enough of these games, my partner. Return to me. We must prepare for the final assault. The void waits for no one._   
  
Zarkon senses hesitation and confusion in the Black Lion. He wants to protect and assist his paladin more than anything. But he has two, not one; he cannot support one without harming the other. He is unsure.   
  
_I cannot fight the void without you,_ Zarkon insists. _You are the key. You are the only one who can reach the creature._  
  
 _Do not hunt this thing,_ the Black Lion insists, just like he did ten thousand years ago.   
  
_I do not hunt it, but I prepare for it, just as I said I would ten millennia ago when Alfor separated us,_ Zarkon says. He is unable to hide the contempt in his thoughts. _The Galra Empire is all in preparation for the day it strikes._  
  
 _Leave it be,_ the Black Lion insists. _Do not hunt this thing. Do not prepare for it. You are not what you were, paladin. The Devourer drives you to the edge of what you are._  
  
 _I do what I do out of necessity, and because I—and you—are the only ones who understand the danger,_ Zarkon says. _Ten thousand years ago you believed me. You alone saw the same creature I did. You know the risks. You agreed preparations must be made. Necessary sacrifices must be made—including myself, if it comes to it._  
  
 _Do not hunt this thing,_ the Black Lion insists. _You cannot fight the Devourer, paladin. Not as you are._

 

  
  
 _And do you believe your_ new _paladin capable of fighting the void where I cannot?_ Zarkon asks with a mental scoff. The new paladin still struggles against Zarkon’s will even now, still cries out in pain, still isn’t even aware of the rapid conversation going on just over his surface thoughts.  
  
There is a hesitation, a long silence hidden within the barest ticks of time and thought. Zarkon feels a sudden mixture of dread and fury. _You have not told him of the Devourer_ , he realizes. _And you never intend to._   
  
He shouldn’t be surprised. Not really. The Black Lion had kept him in unknowing ignorance too, until Zarkon had witnessed the danger with his own eyes. He had been lucky to escape with his life because of that enforced ignorance. He had been lucky he hadn’t inadvertently welcomed the void creature into their world. The Black Lion had never apologized for doing so. The Black Lion feared the void and believed in what he did.   
  
_To know is dangerous,_ the Black Lion says, just as it did ten thousand years ago. _Prepare if you must, paladin, but to know is to give it power. To know is to risk._  
  
 _To live in ignorance is a larger risk!_ Zarkon snarls back in a rage. His will responds, and seizes a strangling hold of the Lion bond. The new paladin cries out in agony at the renewed assault. _What happens when he discovers the plane shift? What happens when he flies before those burning eyes and opens the way? Your willful ignorance does not make the problem stop existing! It only makes it_ easier _for it to kill us all, with this so-called_ paladin _of yours the instrument for the entire_ universe’s _destruction!_   
  
The Black Lion struggles against his will, but he’s torn—Zarkon can see that, _feel_ that. The Black Lion understands Zarkon’s arguments and recognizes his conviction, but he doesn’t want to accept it. He understands Zarkon’s actions, but he does not wish to abandon his new paladin, either. He is torn, and that makes his defenses weak.   
  
And Zarkon’s mind is stronger than it ever has been, between his druids’ power and his _rage._ How _dare_ the Black Lion act this way! He above all else _knows_ the danger, _knows_ why Zarkon is doing what he does, in a way no one else does or ever will. The Black Lion _knows_ , and still he chooses to hide away that knowledge out of fear of it without considering the repercussions. His new paladin is not strong enough to handle the void and he knows this and _still_ he provides no warning. This paladin will get them all killed because of his ignorance.   
  
This is not the way of a black paladin. This is not what they stand for. This is not about protecting the universe at all costs. This is a betrayal of everything the black paladin has ever stood for. This is about hiding from one’s responsibilities and refusing to accept that something must be done.   
  
And Zarkon will not accept this, not for anything.   
  
His will surges forward, paralyzes the pilot, seizes the controls. He feels the pilot struggle against him even now, the faint beating of an insect against his vast power. Stronger than the pilot are the Black Lion’s struggles. He tries to draw from his bond with the new paladin to resist, but the attempt fails.   
  
Zarkon scoffs at the try. _You cannot fight it,_ he says, his mind stronger than ever. _Your connection is weak._ Thankfully all too true—perhaps the only reassuring thing about this quintent. The connection he senses between them isn’t strong enough yet to reach the void. He has reclaimed the Black Lion in time.  
  
He feels the pilot gasp in response, and realizes that Champion heard him. Too little, too late—with one last surge of power drawn from the druids, Zarkon overrides the last of the controls, and takes the Black Lion as his fully.  
  
 _Spare him,_ the Black Lion begs. _Please, paladin. He is my paladin too. If we must fight the Devourer, I will assist. I understand your need and your dedication. But do not punish him for this._  
  
It’s the ‘too’ that gives Zarkon pause. He thinks back, all those quintents ago, to the awful, stabbing wound of betrayal at the knowledge that the Black Lion had taken another pilot. The feeling is still raw even now, worse still with the newfound knowledge that the Black Lion has kept the Devourer as his own secret. He has no desire to leave Champion alive, not after all the trouble this insignificant Earthling has caused.   
  
But he can feel the Black Lion’s urgency and desperation in this request. He wants to do what he can to support both paladins—because he recognizes that he _has_ two. He hasn’t abandoned Zarkon completely. But for Zarkon to kill the new paladin would be to create a rift that would make the Lion much more difficult to pilot. A Lion of Voltron will never respond well to the death of its paladin; it will resist it’s pilot’s killer with everything it has.  
  
In the end, Zarkon cares little for Champion’s fate one way or another. It is the Black Lion that he truly needs.  
  
He scoffs, but mentally reaches for the controls of the Black Lion, and forcibly ejects the other paladin from the cabin. The Black Lion cries out in his head, but Zarkon makes it clear that the alternative would have been to slay the pilot the moment the Black Lion was pulled into his ship, and after a moment the Lion quiets. Champion spins away through space to the lower parts of the ship, but Zarkon is already disregarding him completely, bringing his full attention to the Black Lion.  
  
 _We must prepare,_ he tells him. _The Empire is ten thousand years in the making, but the Devourer is still stronger. Voltron must be reunited to fight it._  
  
 _I understand,_ the Black Lion says. And Zarkon can sense that he really does, despite how torn the Lion is.  
  
The Black Lion is almost within reach, nearly drawn up to the ritual deck, when the Red Lion appears out of nowhere and slams him free of Zarkon’s grasp.  
  
Zarkon scowls as the Black Lion goes twirling away through space, and crashes into one of the closer spires of his command ship. The Red Lion chases, clearly intent on recovering the Black Lion for its team.   
  
But Zarkon has had enough. The Black Lion is close. The Black Lion understands the enormity of the task in front of them, and has acknowledged Zarkon as his paladin just as much as the other. Zarkon is _done_ letting these children play with forces they do not understand. The fate of the entire universe is at risk, and he will not let them ruin trillions of lives because they do not understand what the real threat is.  
  
He removes the specialized armor, and descends into space to enter the battle and recover the Black Lion himself.  
  
He reaches the Black Lion before the Red Lion and its pilot do, with the advanced thrusters mounted in his greaves. The Black Lion lays docile, waiting for one of his paladins to return, unable to act to protect either when he still cannot decide where his loyalties lie. Zarkon finds it frustrating that this is even a _contest_ —the task before them is unquestionably clear, and this new paladin is simply incapable of fulfilling it. Zarkon is the only answer.   
  
The Black Lion will see soon enough, once he begins to realize the true extent of Zarkon’s preparations. He trusted Zarkon’s instincts and sense of duty before. When he sees what Zarkon has done in his ten thousand years of absence, he will understand, and his loyalty will be solidified once more. Zarkon has spared this other paladin at the Lion’s request; he is owed that much, at least.   
  
But Zarkon has barely landed on the exterior of his ship next to the Black Lion when the Red Lion arrives. There is only a moment of hesitation, and before Zarkon can enter the Black Lion’s cabin and regain his control, the Red Lion roars and strikes. The laser blast tears up part of the ship’s exterior in its rush, before blasting at Zarkon as well.   
  
So eager to fight, but Zarkon expects nothing less of the Red Lion, and any pilot it has chosen. He is sure the red paladin’s predecessor would be pleased.   
  
His eagerness is in character, but much like Champion, this pilot is an infant compared to Zarkon’s skills. Zarkon summons his bayard and shields himself from the blast with ease. His mind does not even struggle to maintain the strength needed to repel the laser blast. When the smoke clears, the Red Lion circles overhead, and Zarkon dispels his shield with disinterest, holding the bayard’s natural form in his claws.   
  
“You may have a Lion,” he tells the pilot calmly, “But its power is _weak_ in your fledgling hands.” The red paladin’s predecessor had been capable of some truly astounding feats in combat, and the Red Lion had once been a terror to behold, swift and fierce and powerful. But this…this is a child playing at soldier with a sword he can barely lift. There is no comparison.   
  
Very well, then. Zarkon will claim _this_ Lion, too. Its power can be better spent fighting the Devourer, and put to use with a Galra soldier who can better use it than this _child._   
  
He lashes out with his bayard, now in sword form, and concentrates his power into a blast that strikes from a distance. The Red Lion may know the technique, but its pilot does not, and they take the hit full on in the side. The Red Lion spins, but its pilot recovers quickly, and turns to face him again.  
  
Not giving up. Not surrendering a fight. This one certainly does have the spirit of the red paladin; he can see, just as he saw with the Black Lion, why this fledgling was chosen. But it will not be enough.   
  
“You cannot stop me,” he warns. “The Black Lion will finally be returned to its original paladin.” To his _only_ paladin. To the only one who knows how to properly utilize the Black Lion’s skills, to the only one who can keep the key to the void safely unturned for as long as possible.   
  
The Red Lion only charges in answer.  
  
The battle is not particularly taxing for Zarkon. He shifts through the forms of his bayard with ease to counter laser blasts with his shield and attack with blade, chain whip, and cannon. The red paladin fights decently well, for his level as a novice, utilizing laser strikes, jaw blade, and the full range of movement of his Lion for maximum offensive ability. For a novice, he is quite skilled.   
  
But for a red paladin, he is a failure. He utilizes only the very bare basics of the Red Lion’s abilities. He’s overly reckless. He over-exposes himself constantly for an attempt at a shot. He continues to push the battle even when he is clearly outmatched. Zarkon is well aware this is a failing for the Red Lion’s chosen pilot. He remembers working closely with this paladin’s predecessor on that exact flaw, training them in better patience and caution, encouraging stronger team dynamic, and discouraging the tendency to attack on their own because of a false sense of battle confidence. And he uses that flaw to his advantage now.   
  
He is _almost_ impressed when the Red Lion manages to summon its rail gun, just as he is about to make the final strike. To his knowledge, none of the new paladins have discovered any of the Lions’ upgrades. Even the Red Lion’s temporary hesitation suggests surprise in its pilot when the weapon appears. That hesitation just barely gives Zarkon enough time to shift his sword into a defensive stance and brace himself before the blast hits.   
  
The damage is devastating—destroying a significant portion of his ship’s exterior ring—but it is still hardly comparable to what its predecessor was able to push the rail gun to. An intriguing development, and indication that the bond between the Red Lion and its new paladin is growing stronger in combat, but in the end inconsequential. It just means Zarkon will have to move faster to recover the Lions, before they bond too deeply with these fledglings.   
  
The Red Lion and its pilot fire the rail gun again, but Zarkon is ready for it now. He swerves in a zigzagging pattern, deliberately letting the weapon cast up obscuring debris, and uses the cover of its own attack to close the distance between them.   
  
“You fight like a Galra soldier,” Zarkon observes. This one, just like the red paladin of old, has the same victory-or-death mentality he has spent ten thousand years working into the culture and mindset of his own people. It is almost impressive—this one _might_ have been useful in the Galra Empire against the Devourer—but he knows this paladin will never relent, either. That, too, is the way of the Red Lion—brash, reckless, impulsive, and difficult to gain the trust of, but once it has been found, the loyalty they offer is absolute and unyielding. This one will never break, not even if he _did_ learn the truth of the void.   
  
Defeat is the only option, then.  
  
“But not for long,” he promises, as he forms the black bayard’s polearm, and smashes the Red Lion into the ship’s surface. It doesn’t get up again, and Zarkon knows its strength, and the strength of its pilot, has finally been depleted. He fought well, for a novice, but he never stood a chance against an experienced paladin. Zarkon will finish the pilot off, and have the Red Lion recovered into his personal ship until he can find a worthy successor for it. He will—  
  
There is an all too familiar roar behind him. He turns in surprise in midair, just in time to see the Black Lion bearing down on him, mouth open wide and glowing brightly as a laser blast charges. Zarkon’s eyes widen in surprise as _his Lion_ , as _his partner_ , bears down on him and fires.   
  
He barely overcomes his own shock in time to raise his sword-form bayard to guard. The blade shields him from the brunt of the attack, but he has no surface to brace against in zero gravity, and the blast smashes him down into the side of the ship in a massive metal crater. By the time the smoke clears the Black Lion is already a speck in the distance, the damaged Red Lion held his jaws.   
  
Zarkon stares after them as they rejoin the Castle of Lions in the distance.  
  
There’s suddenly too many things at war in his head, leaving him in a twisted, numb state. He feels _fury,_ at the thought that the Black Lion had _dared_ to strike him—had tried to _kill_ him—after their discussion only doboshes ago. The Black Lion _knows_ the danger. The Black Lion _knows_ how important Zarkon is to the survival of the entire universe, knows the mission of Voltron more than anything. The Black Lion had accepted the threat. He knew! He _knew_ what had to be done! And still he attacked his own paladin! Zarkon doesn’t care that part of that had to have been due to the will of the new black paladin, of Champion—the Black Lion could fight that will if he so chose. He chose not to.  
  
He feels betrayal, deeper again than before, the wound cutting worse, cutting deeper, more painful. It had wounded him enough to know the Black Lion had merely chosen another pilot—but it is a _deliberate_ betrayal when the Black Lion willingly chose to strike at one to protect another. Especially one so worthless, so _weak_ , as Champion. And after Zarkon had gone so far as to _spare_ that useless paladin’s life, all because of the Black Lion’s pleas.   
  
And he feels the sickly, crawling feeling of dread, and of fear. Because he knows the Black Lion will continue to hide the truth of the Devourer from his pilot. He _knows_ that paladin will continue to strengthen that bond, slowly but surely. He knows that paladin is too weak to resist the Devourer’s power, if the void should find him. And he knows it is only a matter of time before the paladin stumbles across the void and kills them all in his weakness and his ignorance. And Zarkon had not been able to stop it from happening, because of the Black Lion’s choices, and because of the Black Lion’s interference.   
  
He narrows his eyes. The Black Lion has made his—no, _its_ —choice. It has chosen a new paladin, and it has chosen a side. It doesn’t give a damn about the threat of the Devourer; it would rather ignore the danger and hide from it than prepare. It would rather have a weak-willed paladin command it in ignorance, until the day that paladin wanders into the void and is consumed, body, mind, and soul. It would rather put the entire universe at risk than accept Voltron’s duty, rather than accept Zarkon as its paladin.  
  
Very well then. If that is the Lion’s choice, so be it. Zarkon will not risk the fate of the universe on the fickle whims of a machine. The next time he encounters the new black paladin, he will kill him, no matter how the Black Lion pleads. The next time he encounters the Black Lion, he will take it by force, _command_ it, as a leader to a soldier. Gone is the partnership between Black Lion and black paladin; it can only exist when there is trust, and the Black Lion had cast that aside like the worthless garbage that promise had ultimately been. The Black Lion is a weapon and a tool, and the only thing that can save or destroy the universe. Zarkon will do whatever he can to seize it, and ensure that the traitorous machine can do nothing but _save._   
  
He can feel those burning eyes watching him as he in turn watches the Castle of Lions sail away. _Just a little longer,_ he thinks, as the clocks count down further in his head. _Just a little longer and I will fix all of this._

* * *

  
  
Haggar buys them a little time, at least.   
  
With Voltron escaping in the Castle of Lions, Zarkon fears that they will disappear. If they do, they will have a chance to bond further with their Lions, and unlock more of their skills before he can reclaim it again. But Haggar thinks quickly, and interrupts the integrity of the wormhole the Castle escapes through. At best, they will be scattered in the unstable fluctuations of the wormhole, and it will take some time for them to find each other again—time they will _not_ be able to use to strengthen Voltron. At worst, they will still be forced to regroup as a team, and figure out where they have been translocated to.   
  
Haggar has other news, as well. “I wounded the Champion,” she reports. “With void magic. The wound was deep, although I could not finish the blow before his fellow paladin and the princess came to rescue him. But perhaps if we are lucky, he will succumb to his injury.”  
  
Zarkon can hope—but somehow he doubts they will be that lucky. Still, even a non-lethal wound from void magic will take time to recover from. It gives them time to deal with their own situation, and prepare for another battle with Voltron. Because he does not intend to let them be at large for long. He _will_ reclaim it, before that traitorous Black Lion and its inexperienced, naive pilot get them all killed.  
  
The first order of business is dealing with the escape itself. Haggar and her druids work quickly; within vargas they are certain of the sabotage that permitted the solar barrier to fall and the new paladins to escape. The sentries guarding the room had been destroyed in close combat, and the barrier deactivated manually. Haggar had been furious at the Champion’s escape pointing to some sort of internal spy, but the disruption of the barrier implies whatever force is harrying the Empire extends to much higher in its ranks than Zarkon cares for.   
  
Prorok, of course, tries to pin the blame on Haggar. It has been no secret to Zarkon since this commander joined the ranks that he has no love for the druids, and he is too ambitious for his own good. His skills as a general were useful, but he has become too much of a liability in Zarkon’s command.   
  
Zarkon does not like weaknesses. Not when they are so close to the heart of the Empire. Not when those weaknesses point to some sort of spy network working against him. He has the infection removed.   
  
Prorok screams of his innocence as he’s dragged away. Lieutenant Thace keeps his head carefully down as he kneels in subservience, already ignoring his commanding officer’s cries. Zarkon feels no pity for the commander. Prorok is too easy a target for this, and Zarkon feels instinctively that this man is not skilled enough at subterfuge to have orchestrated so careful a spy network. But even if he is not responsible for causing the barrier to fail, he _is_ responsible for letting this happen under his direct command, and for being so involved in his own ambitious moves he’s failed to take the importance of the Empire into account. No, while Prorok must also be removed, Zarkon is sure there is another close to the heart of the organization that is truly responsible for this, and he intends to find out who.  
  
“Lieutenant Thace,” he intones, and the officer looks up in surprise. “You are now in charge of the investigation… _commander._ ”   
  
The newly promoted commander acknowledges with a quick “ _Vrepit sa_ ,” no doubt considering the strengths as well as the perils of obtaining his superior’s job. Zarkon will let him continue with the investigation—but he is not fool enough to think Thace is innocent, either. He, too, is part of the heart of the Empire.  
  
Zarkon will have Haggar watch _all_ of them.   
  
She is the only one he trusts implicitly to not be involved, after all. The only one who knows the true threat at the roots of the world almost as well as he, and the only one who knows the true purpose of the Galra Empire. She will be as ruthless as needed to uncover the truth, and to protect the Empire, because doing so will protect the entire universe.  
  
She will uncover this traitor. And Zarkon will crush them absolutely. 

* * *

  
  
Tracking Voltron is essential, now. Zarkon can no longer let the new paladins, _especially_ the Champion, abuse the weapon so recklessly out of ignorance. He is no longer content to send his men to try and recover it. It has become abundantly clear it is a task beyond their abilities, and even more importantly, it is something he desires to handle personally. Time is of the essence and he cannot afford to waste it and let the paladins grow stronger still. Every tick they bond with their Lions, especially the Black Lion, is a tick closer to the moment the key to the void turns and the Devourer pours forth into the world.  
  
Haggar has a potential solution, but it requires a test. She has been developing another of the mechanical beasts, and intends to use Prorok as its essence pilot. It is a fitting punishment, and simultaneously an excellent choice for the beast, since the failed commander’s ambition will fuel it with a great deal of power. But she must know where to send it.  
  
“My divinations assisted with finding the princess, and our reports from commanders in the field were enough to direct the first two beasts,” she says, “but Voltron has not been seen by the empire in quintents since their attack. With the power of my druids, you were able to overpower Voltron with your will and your connection to the Black Lion. And with the power of my druids and your connection, we will reach out to find them now.”   
  
He agrees to the attempt. The druids gather on the ritual deck, and Haggar guides him through his part as they channel power into him. He reaches into the part of his mind that has always held his connection with the Black Lion, just like he has thousands of times before thousands of years ago. Always, a paladin is able to sense their Lion’s whereabouts within relative proximity, and Zarkon has used the skill often. But with Haggar’s magic and the power of the ritual, it is as though that distance has stretched to thousands upon thousands of lightyears. He follows the thread in his mind to the Black Lion, flashing past a hundred thousand galaxies too quickly to make them out, and finally finds himself in a xanthorium cluster in a region the Galra empire only weakly controls.   
  
“I have the coordinates to launch the beast,” he says, when the power halts, and he falls to one knee. The loss of so much power so suddenly is disorienting. He will need to grow used to it, if this experiment is to be a success.  
  
The beast, with Prorok as its essence pilot, is sent. Because the paladins are not planet-side this time, there is no way to send a monitoring station that can actively watch the fight, and only Haggar is aware when the beast is destroyed. But enough data transmits back from the beast before its destruction to indicate it did, at least, locate Voltron.   
  
Which means that its real purpose—to prove Haggar’s ritual and Zarkon’s sense of the Lion could be used to find them—is an unmitigated success. That its secondary purpose failed is irritating, but ultimately inconsequential.   
  
Zarkon will find and defeat them himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out dat glorious art by curiosity-killed :D This was a tricky piece to visualize and still she did a gorgeous job with it!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has one of my favorite scenes...and also the scene people have been asking about the most, haha. Enjoy :)

With Haggar’s test a success, they spend the next spicolian movements preparing for the real assault. Haggar’s ritual is powerful and capable of allowing them to find the paladins anywhere, but it requires a great deal of fuel in the form of quintessence to power it. For the strategy Zarkon has in mind, they will _need_ a great deal of quintessence to put towards the tactic. Haggar and her druids spend those movements using the Komar to drain as many planets as possible, stockpiling raw quintessence to aid them in the coming battle.  
  
Every tick of every spicolian movement weighs heavier on Zarkon’s shoulders, and he hates the feeling of wasting time. Each and every moment that passes is another moment the new black paladin may have to bond with the Black Lion. Every dobosh spent not hunting Voltron is another dobosh closer to the moment the barrier between planes collapses, and the Devourer is let into the world. For every varga that slips past, the intensity of a thousand burning gazes staring at his mind, body and soul grows stronger.  
  
He feels the press of time acutely, but he knows better than to rush Haggar and her druids. They gather the quintessence as fast as they can, and he trusts Haggar implicitly. And when they _do_ have enough power at their fingertips to attack, he _will_ conclude the war between the empire and these new paladins once and for all.   
  
Once they begin, Zarkon will not stop until the Black Lion, and all of Voltron, are in his control once more. He will let them run no longer.   
  
Haggar finally announces preparations are complete, at nearly the same time his forces on the Olkari planet radio in to announce Voltron’s presence. They were beaten back and forced to retreat, the officer there reports furiously, after Voltron successfully roused the people in a rebellion.  
  
Zarkon is irritated with the officer’s failure, but his weakness can be punished later. Now is the perfect opportunity to strike—while his forces are fresh and prepared, and the Voltron paladins have only just completed a battle. No matter how skilled the soldier, none can work tirelessly, least of all fresh paladins as green as these ones still are.   
  
“Prepare my fleet for hyperspeed,” he orders, and heads for the ritual deck. His men jump into action, and Haggar follows after him with a gathering of her best druids, each fully briefed on their plan of attack.  
  
The first jump does not require a link to the Black Lion, not with the report from the Olkari planet. That is good, since transporting a full fleet and his command ship requires a great deal of energy. Better to conserve what they can of the harvested quintessence they’ve spent movements gathering.   
  
Even without the exact coordinates, they appear out of space directly on top of the Castle of Lions, and immediately open fire on the ship. The fact that it takes so long for it to get moving, and to raise its particle barrier, is all the indication Zarkon needs that he has successfully caught the paladins off guard. His fighters harry the ship and stay directly on its tail, following too closely for it to escape via wormhole without taking a few of his soldiers with them. Zarkon is well familiar with the distance—in the past he, Alfor, and the other paladins of old had struggled with nearly the same problem. Zarkon is perfectly willing to use that weakness to his advantage now.  
  
In the end, they do escape. The Castle of Lions dives and uses the gravity of one of the nearby moons as a slingshot. The maneuver increases its speed, letting it outdistance enough of Zarkon’s fighters before disappearing into a wormhole. It’s a clever move—Zarkon isn’t sure which of the new team of Voltron is responsible for it, but he is sure it would have impressed Alfor in the past.   
  
But Zarkon had not expected to catch them in the first jump, anyway. In millennia past, when he had acted as the head of Voltron with his own paladins, he had always stressed the importance of the war over the skirmish. This is a battle of patience. Let them think they’ve won. It will only weaken them further.  
  
“Begin the ritual,” he orders Haggar and her druids.  
  
The new paladins don’t jump nearly as far as Zarkon expects. Although he has never been capable of using a teludav for the Altean wormhole generators, a feat even most Alteans can’t manage, he had made it his job as the leader of Voltron all those millennia ago to know exactly what the Castle of Lions was capable of. He knows precisely how far Alfor could jump, even under duress. Princess Allura is clearly capable of using the teludav as well, not that Zarkon ever doubted it when she’s Alfor’s daughter. But she either isn’t as skilled as her father was—or there is something wrong with the Castle’s ability to generate wormholes.   
  
Either way, it is to Zarkon’s advantage. The paladins cannot run nearly so far as they’d like, and it will take him even less time to reach them. Using a teludav is exhausting work—he remembers Alfor collapsing on more than one occasion when transferring Voltron to its newest destination after a hard battle. They won’t be able to run forever, and each attempt to do so will weaken them further. And if Princess Allura is weaker than her father is, or if the Castle is beginning to malfunction after ten thousand years, it will make his task all the easier.  
  
“I have the new coordinates,” Zarkon tells Haggar, as he raises from the ritual circle again. “Prepare the fleet for hyperspeed once more.”  
  
It’s only vargas after their last attack when they exit hyperspeed at Voltron’s location. This time they find the Castle of Lions nestled in a field of massive ice crystals. The Castle is hidden neatly in the center of one ice crystal’s crater, a weak attempt to hide it visually and throw off any sensors hunting for them. Unfortunately for the paladins, Zarkon is far past searching for them with mere technology.  
  
The ship doesn’t even respond until Zarkon opens fire—they aren’t even aware Zarkon has found them again until he strikes. Excellent. His fighters immediately launch to harry the ship. Once again, it takes the Castle of Lions far longer than it should to raise its particle barrier for protection, and even longer to flee, or to try and strike back with the defense drones. He’s caught them off guard, and he doubts they have had any opportunity to rest after their misunderstood ‘liberation’ of the Olkari. It is forcing them to make mistakes.   
  
He will take advantage of every one.   
  
His men exclaim in surprise when the Castle of Lions stops returning fire, and moments later when its particle barrier drops. “Keep attacking,” Zarkon orders. “Do not relent.” Inwardly, he changes his assessment from earlier. Something is malfunctioning with the Castle of Lions—there is no way any of them would be foolhardy enough to lower their defenses against such an onslaught, not unless they had no other choice.   
  
Sure enough, only doboshes later another glowing blue wormhole appears in front of the Castle of Lions. The Altean ship is just barely ahead of Zarkon’s fighters, only just far enough ahead to make it through the wormhole successfully without being followed.   
  
But Zarkon can tell his enemy is wounded, now. They are limping away from the fight at best, and there is only so much longer they can maintain. Zarkon’s fleet is fresh, while they are injured, and he will take full advantage.  
  
He will run the Castle of Lions into the ground. He _will_ have Voltron again.  
  
“Another ritual,” he barks at Haggar and her druids. “ _Now._ ”  
  
The Castle of Lions travels even smaller a distance than the last time; finding their coordinates takes only a few doboshes. It only takes a few doboshes more to travel by hyperspeed to their new location. This time, they have found their way to a massive metallic storm. By now, they certainly have to suspect him of tracking them somehow, because the ship has already hidden itself in the eye. Once again, a clever move—if Zarkon had been tracking them with some sort of technological device, this certainly would have interfered with him finding them.   
  
But it is the Black Lion that leads him to them unerringly, and he will _never_ let them flee again. It is past time for Voltron to cease harrying the empire and weakening the unity of the entire universe. It is past time for it to be wasted in the hands of inexperienced pilots when it _should_ be a weapon to fight against the void. It is past time for Voltron to avoid the true purpose it was made for.   
  
Zarkon will not let them run again.  
  
“Send in the fighters,” he orders. “Flush them out. When they are in range, I will take control of the Black Lion.” They have trapped themselves in this storm, and even if they are capable of another wormhole jump, they won’t make it more than a galaxy away at their current rate. The Castle of Lions has already taken too much damage on its own to resist his personal command ship. He will force them to form Voltron to defend themselves, and he will end the battle here.   
  
Sure enough, the Castle of Lions does not raise its particle barrier, even under fire, and it has no way to flee. Pushed back against a wall, the new paladins have no choice but to defend it, and Voltron forms down in the storm. Zarkon’s fighters give chase, and Voltron does an all too obvious job of making itself the primary target to draw attention away from the ship it is protecting.   
  
It disappears into the thick walls of the metallic storm, but Zarkon is not particularly concerned about its sudden disappearance, even when Haggar seems disturbed by the report. The new paladins believe they are in the right, however misguided and naive they are—they would not abandon the Castle of Lions, or Princess Allura, so easily, and certainly not to save their own skins. Ten thousand years ago, Zarkon never would have abandoned Alfor, the Castle support staff, or any of his paladins either. Voltron will use the cover of the storm to try and get within range of Zarkon’s ship to strike, and to play distraction until the princess can escape.  
  
They don’t understand how predictable their tactic is, or that it plays right into Zarkon’s own strategy.  
  
Sure enough, Voltron emerges from the storm several doboshes later, trailing debris as it appears with sword and shield in hand. It floats tauntingly just out of reach, but directly in view. They don’t attack, which Zarkon finds irritating—clearly these children are too cautious to utilize Voltron’s full power, either. They also aren’t quite close enough to reach mentally, even with the boost of the druids’ power. It’s clear they are trying to taunt Zarkon’s ship away from the eye of the storm to permit the Castle of Lions a chance to escape.  
  
It’s clear, but Zarkon chases anyway. “Get me closer to the Black Lion,” he orders.  
  
“Sire,” Haggar says, with a trace of surprise and protest both, “we have the princess trapped. We can finish her here and now!”  
  
“The Black Lion is _all_ that matters!” he snarls in return, turning to glare at her. There is command in his voice—he _refuses_ to be disobeyed on this, even by Haggar. Zarkon is fully aware of Haggar’s dislike of the royal Altean line, and her ruthlessness in the task ahead, but he has no time for her arguments and her petty hatreds—not with Voltron _right_ there. She might understand the point of the Empire, but she does _not_ understand the importance of the Black Lion to the defense of the entire universe. The Altean princess can harry him for the next thousand years out of ignorance, but the Galra Empire can and will recover. The moment Champion unwittingly unlocks the plane shift, the entire _universe_ is doomed.   
  
Haggar does not look pleased, but she still knows her vows from ten thousand years ago. She bows, and obeys. His men adjust the ship’s course, and he leaves the eye of the storm behind as they make for Voltron.  
  
“Give me power,” he orders the druids, and they obey wordlessly.   
  
Voltron taunts them further away from the eye of the storm, staying just out of physical range of Zarkon’s command ship and its tractor beam. They think they are being clever. Zarkon will prove them wrong. Just as before, he follows the trail in his mind to the Black Lion, and slams his will in between it and its paladin.  
  
And just as before, he feels Champion’s mind as he forces his own will into the matrix of Voltron. Champion’s mind expresses surprise, for a moment, but this time it fights back against him immediately. It’s only a marginally stronger attempt, with a strength still infantile compared to his own, and he crushes it with his will easily as he reaches through to take the controls. The Black Lion freezes, and with it, so does Voltron.   
  
_Stop this, paladin!_ The Black Lion protests. _You interfere with Voltron’s unity! This is not right!_  
  
 _It is not right for you to so easily abandon your original paladin either,_ Zarkon snarls at it furiously, as he reaches with his will for the controls. He feels the other paladins and their Lions trying to fight his will, using their thrusters to try and push against his mind dragging Voltron back. But they, too, are too weak to fight him.   
  
_I did not abandon you,_ the Black Lion thinks, but its thoughts are almost meek, hesitant, unsure.   
  
_You struck against me movements ago,_ Zarkon counters, and images of the Black Lion’s attack, his memories, transmit at the speed of thought.  
  
 _That was my paladin,_ the Black Lion offers weakly. It offers a memory in return—of the Champion, of his fear and panic as one of his own paladins was attacked, desperate to protect, asking the Black Lion for assistance.  
  
But Zarkon will have none of its arguments. _Take responsibility for your own actions,_ he tells it, enraged. _You could resist his will if you desired, but you do not. You ignore the true purpose of Voltron. You leave this new one in ignorance willfully, so you need not face the void again. You aid them in fighting against me, though I alone know the true danger the entire universe faces and all that I do is to save it. You alone besides myself have seen the true danger, yet you hide and hope it doesn’t find you rather than prepare to face it the day it comes. You betray where it suits you and care more for your own fate than that of the universe. Voltron exists to defend that universe—if you will not do so willingly, then I will see to it that you are made to do so._  
  
And once again, he reaches into the Voltron matrix of minds, and orders it to disassemble.   
  
He feels the confusion of the paladins, and the frustration of the other Lions, but distantly. He is more conscious of the new black paladin’s panic and frustration, and his struggles to hold Voltron together against Zarkon’s will. And he is aware of the Black Lion’s thoughts too—a chaotic tumbling mess of righteousness and shame, of frustration and confusion, of fear and courage, and of a great divide and a choice still not made.   
  
They are nearly at the cusp of separating when something strikes his command ship.   
  
His druids stagger in surprise; Zarkon himself collapses to his knees. His eyes widen as the Castle of Lions attacks the ship again, sending the whole thing shaking once more. The power transmitted to him disappears with a crackle, and he loses the boost in energy he needs to keep a firm grasp of Voltron’s mind. Their combined minds slither from his grasp, and Voltron flees immediately to a safer distance. It disappears into the Castle of Lions as the second ship flashes past.   
  
Zarkon is _livid._ He had not expected the Castle of Lions to still have enough power to make such an attack with their weaponry, not with the way their systems have been visibly failing since the chase begun. But he refuses to let them get away. “Attack that Castle with everything we’ve got!” he roars. _“Capture Voltron!”_   
  
They are so close. So _close._ He can _feel_ the press of time, those harrowing eyes on his soul. He _will not_ let them escape. He _will_ have the Black Lion.   
  
Haggar looks equally furious as she waves for the orders to be followed. He can practically see the _I warned you_ in her eyes, but she is too focused on taking down the Altean princess now to dwell on it.   
  
The Castle of Lions leads his fighters on a wild chase, diving and dodging, but it does not fire again, and neither does it disappear into a wormhole. Zarkon is almost positive they aren’t able to, and wonders if the ship has enough energy left to do anything besides try to flee. He uses that to his advantage, and has his fighters circle around to drive the Altean ship back towards his own command ship. If he can get within range, his tractor beam can seize the Castle of Lions, and he should be able to safely extract the Lions without destroying them.   
  
But the Castle of Lions continues to flee, and isn’t cornered so easily by his fighters. The longer he gives them, the more of a chance they have to flee. “Fire the ion cannon!” he finally orders. “Blast them out of space.”   
  
“Sire, what of the Lions?” Haggar asks, stunned.  
  
“Aim for the back of the center of the ship,” Zarkon commands. The cannon will wipe out the engines and likely kill everyone on board, but the Lion bays are situated closer to the front of each of the spires. The loss of the Castle of Lions will be unfortunate, but he will take it in exchange for Voltron without question.  
  
The cannon fires—but as it does, a wormhole suddenly appears before the Castle of Lions, and it disappears into it. The ion beam blasts through empty space.   
  
Zarkon is _furious._   
  
“Begin the ritual!” he snaps at the druids. “We will find them and give chase _immediately.”_   
  
“Sire, we cannot,” Haggar says, as the other druids stand around uneasily. “The quintessence fuel we harvested—it has been depleted. Maintaining your hold over the Black Lion was strenuous on our resources, more than expected. Their resistance is growing stronger.”   
  
Zarkon is not pleased by this. All of that effort, wasted. The new paladins will be exhausted from the encounter, and their ship has been severely damaged—now is the time to press the attack. They will be given time to recover if he cannot give chase.   
  
Still…there is no place they can go that he cannot ultimately find them. “Harvest more quintessence,” he orders. “Twice the amount gathered as before. We will hunt them down again, and this time we will not let them get away. Voltron _will_ be recovered. I _will_ have the Black Lion once again.”   
  
Haggar bows and departs to see to the task. For a while, Zarkon stares down at the metallic storm from the ritual deck, watching the chaos of the maelstrom as he considers their next actions.

  
  
Every part of him is desperate to hurry. In a way, time is on his side—he can outlast the paladins, if it comes to it, drive them into the ground if necessary, and he does not intend to give up on recovering Voltron. And yet, he can feel the press of time of those not one, but two clocks. The Devourer’s terrifying presence comes ever closer with each tick, patient and hungry for this world; and with every tick the new black paladin comes ever closer to letting it in.   
  
He must hurry. The universe depends on it. And yet patience and care are needed to ensure that he does not, at the same time, drive the paladins so far to the brink that they open the door anyway.   
  
He must hurry, but he must not be foolhardy enough to rush, either. So he will prepare. He will wait. And when the time comes, he will finally strike, and remove the paladins from Voltron. And then, perhaps at last, the universe will be safe.  
  


* * *

  
  
Quintents pass. Haggar and her druids work feverishly to gather more quintessence for another chase. A little is spared to monitor the locations of the paladins, but much more is needed before the entire fleet can be moved in rapid chase.  
  
Once again, Zarkon feels the press of time, and the gaze of a thousand burning eyes growing hotter and more intense on his soul, especially when he locates the Black Lion’s location. But he holds back on the desire to chase immediately, especially when they are not located near any Galra infrastructure. He cannot afford to let the paladins, and especially the Black Lion, escape again. They must be well prepared when next they meet.  
  
There is one incident when the new paladins do arrive near a Galra ship. He sends Morvok posthaste, although he really doesn’t expect the pathetic commander to accomplish anything, not with his cowardice and boot-licking. He must review his commanders again, and only permit the strongest to maintain power, once this business with Voltron is over. Weakness is beginning to fester in his empire again, spreading like rot. He must cut it out when Voltron is recovered.  
  
Not surprisingly, Morvok fails, and Voltron escapes again. Zarkon knows failure was imminent, but still pushes for even more quintessence harvesting at a faster rate. Voltron is getting stronger, and so are its paladins. He _cannot_ permit this to continue.  
  
And then, quintents later, as he searches once again for the Black Lion with the new quintessence Haggar and her druids have obtained, he feels it: the presence of not just the Black Lion, but Champion as well.  
  
It starts when he follows the mental thread of his bond with the Black Lion out into the distance, lightyears away. He does find the Black Lion, but to his surprise he finds another is also delving into the bond at the same time. It is an unusual sensation—in ten thousand years Zarkon has _never_ had to compete for the attention of the Black Lion before, and sharing the bond like this deeply is strange and unsettling.  
  
But he follows the trail still further, follows the thread deeper into the bond, and finds himself pulled into his own memories from ten thousand years ago. They are from a better time, before he _ever_ knew of the existence of the Devourer, when the world still had difficulties but they were so simple to address by comparison. He remembers vividly through the Black Lion as though the same memories took place hours ago, not millennia.   
  
Once more the massive comet strikes his planet, devastating an entire swathe of land. King Alfor, a friend even then, offers his Altean people in assistance to aid Zarkon’s own in recovering after so much destruction. He offers, as well, to turn the thing that caused so much suffering into the Galra’s greatest tool of protection. Hundreds of Alteans and Galra surround him, working together to build the Black Lion, an alliance of strength and sincerity. Alfor smiles the day he announces the Black Lion’s completion, and asks Zarkon to be a part of something even greater.   
  
The memories threaten to overwhelm Zarkon. Already he can feel himself being caught in an endless wave of them, more and more from bygone days that can never exist again, more and more from happier times. They are bittersweet, a reminder of what could have been, if anyone had actually _listened_ to him ten thousand years ago.   
  
And stranger still, just on the surface of them, he can sense another mind—one surprised and in awe of everything it sees, digging still deeper, wanting to know still more.  
  
 _No._ He hasn’t the right. Zarkon forces the memory to change, deviating from its original path. He stops speaking to Alfor, and the memory-king doesn’t notice. He turns to glare in the direction of the mind that doesn’t _belong_ ten thousand years in the past, and jolts it free. He feels that mind start in surprise and back away as though bitten, and Zarkon drags himself free of the deluge of memories before he can become lost in them.  
  
All at once he is back inside his own body again on the ritual deck of his command ship, power bolstered by his druids. He never really left, he knows, but he feels as though he’s travelled ten thousand years through time, and the sensation is unsettling. And it is all because of _him._   
  
_“You,”_ he growls under his breath. How dare he. How dare the Black Lion show him those things.  
  
But as he starts to recover, he realizes the real danger of what this unexpected meeting means. The new black paladin is digging deeper into the Black Lion’s bond. The Black Lion is communicating with him. Zarkon doubts the Black Lion will say anything at all about the Devourer—it wishes too badly to hide the truth of the void creature. But there are other things it can reveal: abilities it has, or knowledge of Zarkon. The farther the Champion digs, the further he will bond, and the closer he comes to unlocking the powers the Black Lion has—and the closer he comes to bringing destruction down on all of them, out of pure ignorance.  
  
He _must_ stop this so-called paladin, _now_. To let him further that bond is to allow the universe to die.   
  
“More power,” he orders Haggar. “I have found the paladin. I will end this _now_.”   
  
And fortunately, even galaxies apart, he has exactly a way to do that.  
  
Haggar increases her channelling, and the rest of her druids do the same. Zarkon closes his eyes, concentrating, and uses that power to follow the thread from his mind to the Black Lion once more at the speed of thought.  
  
He is not surprised to find that once again, another mind pokes tentatively into the bond. It is passive, watching as the Black Lion shares, but Zarkon can feel its surprise and interest. He follows the thread further into those thoughts, and once again finds himself in a memory ten thousand years old.   
  
He is in the cabin of the Black Lion, and for a moment he is full of contentment and relief to be in a place so familiar and comforting after ten millennia. The enemy is in the distance, and he remembers this battle from eons ago, remembers how Voltron had flown out to defend this galaxy from invaders who took recklessly and needlessly. He wraps his hands around the controls and feels the Black Lion’s wings spread wide as they choose their next target, a cluster of ships threatening both his paladins and the fighters of the defenders. He and the Black Lion dash forward through space, phase shifting through the ships to reach their blind side. They turn with agility and grace to fire on them, before they can discover their new location. The Black Lion rumbles, and Zarkon can sense his contentment at such a skillful maneuver. Zarkon himself is full of pride and satisfaction at a job well done, at his men being safe again.   
  
It all feels so real. He is nearly lost in the moment, and it is as though ten thousand years of harsh reality and brutal preparation never happened.  
  
But there’s another mind on the surface of the memory too, passively watching, one that doesn’t belong. It is stunned at the images, and Zarkon senses admiration for the Black Lion’s wings and excitement over the new abilities it sees. It wants to learn more. It wants to dig deeper. It wants to understand.  
  
No. _No._ This is what Zarkon has feared since the first moment Voltron was formed on Arus. Already, this fool knows far too much—just enough to want to know more, and not enough to know the danger of what he seeks.   
  
Zarkon will not allow it. _Never._ He will kill this idiot here and how before he _ever_ has a chance to learn enough to destroy the universe.  
  
He slams his will into the memory, and once again wrenches it out of alignment. The Black Lion is startled by his sudden active presence, and he uses that to pull the Black Lion of the memory around, searching with his mind for that other passive watcher. “I’ve got you now, paladin,” he snarls, the moment he finds the startled Champion, and fires the Black Lion’s laser cannon directly at his presence to wrest control away from him. At the same time, he uses all the power the druids channel into him to reach out and snag that weakened mind before it can flee again, and drag it against its will into the astral plane.  
  
Zarkon makes the transition to the astral plane smoothly, and the familiar soothing darkness interspersed with bright stars and an eternal eclipse melts into existence around him. There is no real surface in this plane—a place of thought and spirit and existence, but no form—but standing is as easy as willing it. Zarkon has spent thousands of years training here, sharpening his mind to be strong enough to resist the Devourer’s terrifying existence-shredding aura. By now, traversing the astral plane is as easy as thinking and visualization, and this place is exactly as Zarkon wills it.  
  
The Black Lion is equally comfortable with the astral plane. How many hours did the two train together ten thousand years ago, when working to perfect the bond and the strength of Voltron? The Black Lion is nearly as much a part of the astral plane as the true world—it may be a physical being of machinery, but it is also a spiritual essence of magic, and a creature of space, of a thousand planes of existence. The Lion appears and settles back on its haunches, also creating a concept of surface where there is none.   
  
Zarkon can feel its confusion, its hesitation. It is still not sure which of its paladins it should support, when it seems to want to support both, and consequently it feels divided. It is devoted to its paladins—but not enough, Zarkon notes bitterly, to actually make a choice on the matter, constantly meandering back and forth. It understands what drives Zarkon, understands the necessity of his mission, and knows of the true danger. But it also wants nothing to do with the Devourer, and it delights in the nobility and inspirational qualities of its newest paladin, however they may come from naivety and inexperience. It cannot make a choice.  
  
 _Then I will choose for you,_ Zarkon promises grimly, to himself more than the Lion. _This paladin dies here and now, and the worlds_ will _be saved._   
  
The new paladin in question does not share the experience of either of the other occupants of the astral plane. He tumbles wildly through space, yelling loudly, and Zarkon can feel his shock and confusion at the abrupt transition. He has no idea where he is, Zarkon realizes with disgust, nor has he any idea of how to adapt to it. And yet the astral plane is one of the easiest to reach, one necessary for any paladin to meditate on and train in with their Lion. If he cannot manage even this simple a plane shift, he will _never_ survive an accidental trip to the void, or an encounter with the Devourer.  
  
Yes, better he die here and now, before endangering them all.   
  
At the last second, the new paladin manages to twist enough to slam awkwardly into the not-ground, landing roughly on one knee with his hands braced agains the not-surface. He takes a second to recover, but looks up quickly to face Zarkon, and immediately drags himself to his feet. The confusion is still evident in his eyes, and he glances over for just a tick at the impassive Black Lion, as though expecting assistance.   
  
But the Black Lion does nothing. It cannot make a choice. So it will wait, and see what arguments both of its paladins present to it. It will see who ultimately earns the right to be the only black paladin.   
  
The new paladin seems to realize no help will come from his Lion, and turns back to face Zarkon. His eyes narrow, and although he’s clearly still confused, he starts to raise his fists in preparation for a fight.  
  
Commendable, Zarkon supposes, but ultimately pointless. He has the spirit to perhaps be a black paladin, but he doesn’t even understand how this world works, and Zarkon has trained here for ten thousand years. His physical combat skills, while notable in the arena, will barely translate here.   
  
“You are a fool to face me here,” he says bluntly. In truth, it is hardly speech at all—more like thought, coalesced into a form others can understand, filled with the emphasis of emotion and sensation that can be felt as well as heard. It’s the same way one speaks to their Lions, but it works just as well with other visiting minds.  
  
Champion doesn’t answer. Perhaps he doesn’t know how, here. He certainly doesn’t seem to understand the risk of fighting here, or Zarkon is sure he’d attempt to flee immediately. Not that Zarkon will let him. The power of the druids permits him to keep this new paladin chained here, unable to escape, and Champion certainly lacks the skill to break that mental chain on his own. But while the druids’ magic is responsible for holding him here, it is purely _Zarkon’s_ strength that will end him, and none other.  
  
“When you die in this realm, your body dies as well,” Zarkon informs him. Just to make it abundantly clear he isn’t leaving this place. “And then I will take control of Voltron.”  
  
He barely finishes speaking before he launches himself forward at the speed of thought, using will and mental discipline to increase his speed. He is not bound by the physical laws here; whatever he wills, he is capable of, as long as he is strong enough mentally to maintain it.   
  
Champion barely has a chance to cross his arms in a block before Zarkon delivers a savage kick to his torso that sends him flying. Immediately Zarkon adjusts his perspective—he does not exist where he is, anymore. Instead, he is absolutely confident in his existence behind the other paladin, and immediately, he is behind his opponent just as he wills. Champion isn’t even aware of Zarkon’s presence behind him. It makes it all too easy for Zarkon to reach out and, with a blow enforced with pure willpower, slam his elbow into the new paladin’s side hard enough to send him flying once again.  
  
Champion manages to right himself with a neat flip and immediately charges, activating the techno-magical prototype prosthetic Haggar had outfitted him with. He punches, but Zarkon is easily able to deflect the blow with his armor, willing it to be strong enough to absorb the strike with no damage. Crackles of energy burst as magic meets will, dispersing into the depths of the astral plane.   
  
Haggar’s work is impressive, as usual. Most machinery without any magical aspect is doomed to fail in this world of spirit. Haggar’s experimentation with energy-laced augments appears to have been at least moderately successful.  
  
Still, Champion relies too much on its mechanical components, and not enough on his own will. Zarkon skirmishes with him for a moment or two, blocking blows, lashing out with his own, testing the other paladin’s skills. But while Champion is a competent fighter—expected, considering his title—all of his attacks are of pure brute force and muscle. There is no _will_ to his attacks, no meditation, no enhanced force. He fights like he is still in the physical plane, like he is still in the arena, binding himself to the laws of physics in his own ignorance.   
  
He fights like a novice.   
  
Very well then. Disappointing, of one the Black Lion seems to think so highly of, and pathetic, for any one who dares to call themselves a paladin. But if he wishes to bind his mind so easily, that is his own affair. Zarkon will not hold back, even for a novice. To do so risks the universe.   
  
He wills himself to the Champion’s left as the new paladin strikes out again, this time with his flesh arm. Instantly Zarkon no longer exists where he was, but rather where he desires. Champion’s fist pierces empty space. He has one moment for startled confusion to flit onto his face before Zarkon twists and, with a vicious strike enforced with willpower, smashes his fist into the Champion’s spine.   
  
The new paladin hits the non-existent ground hard enough to actually shatter a part of the astral plane’s spiritual essence. Pieces of it crack and scatter as Champion gasps in pain and ricochets off into the air again from the force of the blow. There is no gravity in this world either, not unless one wills it. While Champion has been subconsciously envisioning it in his environment due to binding himself to the laws of physics, his mind must be so scattered from the blow he’s temporarily lost control of it.  
  
Zarkon watches in disgust. Such a pathetic lack of control. So weak. So _useless_. And yet _this_ is the thing that is supposed to save the entire universe? This is a _child_ compared to him. The Black Lion is a fool for _ever_ believing this one is worthy to be a paladin.  
  
He adjusts his perspective again. He is aware without question that he is in the air in line with the new paladin’s trajectory, and he envisions that he is fully capable of maintaining flight. Instantly he is in the air, watching the paladin somersault towards him out of control. He backhands the Champion easily out of the air with a will-enforced fist, smashing him back down into the not-quite-ground. Champion hits hard enough to scatter smoky quintessence trails as he cracks the fabric of the astral plane again.   
  
Zarkon lands easily on the not-surface, and watches disdainfully as the new paladin struggles weakly to his hands and knees, gasping for breath and gasping in pain. Even now Champion injures _himself_ —he has no need to breathe here, and yet he imagines he does, and struggles to take in heaving lungfuls of air with bruised ribs he himself is envisioning.   
  
What a disgrace, that the line of the black paladin has come to this.  
  
“You have no idea what you meddle in,” Zarkon tells him bluntly, as Champion struggles to his feet. “You interrupt ten thousand years of careful preparation.”   
  
“Prep…preparation?” the Champion stammers through his harsh breaths. It’s the first time he’s spoken, outside the yells of battle, but Zarkon is not impressed. Certainly he had better be able to learn _something_ , even if the mere basics of the astral plane seem to be beyond him.   
  
Of course, he uses his newfound ability immediately to argue, throwing out impressively incorrect observations and accusations like a child. “You call destroying millions of planets…and enslaving billions of people… _preparing?_ ” he asks, still gasping, but also enraged. “You’re a _monster._ ”  
  
Zarkon is not impressed by this, either. This one would hardly be the first to spit out accusations, and certainly won’t be the first or the last to accuse Zarkon of being some sort of monstrous being. He doesn’t care. He has seen a real monster, in the form of a thousand burning eyes and an ever-shifting void, and he will do whatever it takes to prevent that _thing_ from coming into the world. Let Champion believe what he desires. He will not live long enough to do much else.  
  
“The Black Lion is at the center of everything,” he says instead. “I will take it back, _now._ Voltron’s true purpose is not with you. You have no _idea_ what it really is.”  
  
“It’s not to be a part of your conquest,” Champion roars. “I won’t let it be!” He launches himself forward to strike again.  
  
Even now, he still binds himself to the laws of reality. He doesn’t blink forward through will; he runs, panting hard and at a perfectly normal speed for the physical plane. He lights up his quintessence-laced prosthetic again, and lashes out in a flurry of strikes that might have been impressive against anyone in the arena. Zarkon is equal to them all though, able to see faster than Champion can act with a little increase of willpower, and he blocks or dodges them all with ease.  
  
“You could _never_ take my place as the head of Voltron!” he finally says, snatching the last of Champion’s strikes—this one with his flesh and blood fist—out of midair. He digs his claws in and crushes. Although this world is purely spiritual, Champion’s mental structuring of himself leaves him much like he is in the physical world, and Zarkon feels bones grind and crack in his hand. Champion screams. Zarkon uses his hold on his opponent’s fist to drag him forward, and slams his foot into the new paladin’s chest in another vicious will-enforced kick. Champion goes flying once more, transporting an incredible distance before he slams into the not-quite-ground of the astral plane again, clutching his damaged arm close to his chest.  
  
This time it takes him even longer to struggle upright, but when he does his expression is full of anger and determination. At least he has the spirit worthy of a black paladin, even if his skill as one is disgraceful.   
  
Then he speaks, struggling weakly to his feet. “You can’t pilot the Black Lion again after everything you’ve done,” he yells, glaring across at Zarkon even as he staggers upright. “You can _never_ lead Voltron again. You’re _no paladin_.”   
  
And for the first time since coming to the astral plane, Zarkon is not disgusted. He is not unimpressed.   
  
He is _enraged._   
  
How _dare_ he. This naive, inexperienced fool _dares_ to think he has the right to judge Zarkon? This infantile little _speck_ of a human being is _nothing_ compared to Zarkon—he has no _idea_ what it means to be a paladin! Zarkon has been defending the universe and saving billions of lives before this Earthling’s _ancestors_ even existed and yet he has the _gall_ to think he has the right to decide?   
  
_After everything he’s done?_ After he has _seen_ the Devourer and lived to tell of it? After he has spent _thousands_ of years unifying the entire universe and making it stronger still, to stand as one against the void? After he has trained himself for millennia to face the creature, that existence itself might have a chance to continue? After _everything_ he has ever sacrificed, _every_ price he as ever paid, this pathetic, weak novice _dares_ to judge him unworthy?   
  
He doesn’t know the _meaning_ of sacrifice. He doesn’t know the _meaning_ of duty. He has no _idea_ what it will take to pilot the Black Lion. He has no _idea_ what is required of the black paladin. He is an ignorant child, screaming at his betters as though he knows the world more than they ever could.   
  
He has no idea, and yet he pretends as though he does, spouting grand words and justice-filled ideals and playing at what he thinks a paladin truly is.   
  
His naivety will kill them all, and it _enrages_ Zarkon to levels of fury he rarely ever reaches.   
  
But that fury gives him power.  
  
He darts forward at the speed of thought, and lashes out at his opponent. Champion manages to dodge the first two strikes, but the third, a punch fueled by willpower and _rage_ , strikes true and sends the Champion spinning away. He barely recovers, twisting awkwardly in midair, losing control of his concept of gravity again until he finally manages to recreate it and skid to a stop.  
  
Zarkon presses his advantage, closing the distance rapidly again as he roars, “You have no _idea_ how to command a weapon like this!” _No idea at all how to control it, how to keep from opening the door to the void. You don’t even know that power_ exists. _You don’t know what it is you could do! You will kill us all with your ignorance and you will never even understand why!_   
  
“ _No one_ commands the Black Lion!” the Champion argues back fiercely. In this plane, his words convey more than just language—Zarkon can feel the conviction and determination in them, can feel how the words are full of bright idealism, can feel how strongly this paladin believes in trust and truth and justice.   
  
What a fool. Zarkon almost remembers believing in just the same, millennia ago—before the war, before the void. But if he has learned anything in ten thousand years, it is that the real world was never a place for such naive and idealistic concepts, and never will be. This paladin chases bright dreams, and will never see the darkness of reality snapping at his heels until it is too late.   
  
Not until he sees ten thousand burning eyes in the void, and is slowly consumed by the creature inside.  
  
Champion lashes out again with his glowing fist as Zarkon charges at him. Zarkon instantly wills himself behind his opponent, and Champion’s attack misses. Zarkon takes advantage of the split-second shift to stomp at his opponent, but Champion hurls himself backwards in a roll at the last moment, and avoids the strike.   
  
Zarkon presses the advantage again while his opponent is off balance, blinking again from his current point of existence to a new one with a simple shift of perspective. But Champion seems to finally be picking up on the form of attack now. He charges, and leaps out of the way at the last moment. Zarkon actually misses his strike, and changes his perspective again to dodge before Champion’s glowing hand can hit him.   
  
Enough. Zarkon has had _enough_ of this fool. He may be learning to fight better here, but he still binds himself to the laws of physics, and he still has no concept of how to truly battle in this place. And Zarkon is _done_ letting this fool waste his time. Every tick is a tick closer to the moment this idealistic _child_ kills them all, unless he stops him.   
  
He adjusts his perspective again, and comes arrowing down out of the air towards his opponent at the speed of thought.   
  
It’s almost amusing, how little individuals look up in combat. Even pilots don’t seem to expect it in a battle outside of their ships. But Zarkon can fly here if he so desires, as long as he wills it and believes he can, and his opponent has no idea what this place is truly capable of. Champion looks around for a moment at his own level, searching for where Zarkon may have adjusted his position to, but not once does he look up.  
  
Not until Zarkon roars, “You _dare_ lecture me?” and strikes. Champion has one moment of wide-eyed surprise as he looks up and finally finds Zarkon, before Zarkon smashes him into the surface of the astral plane’s not-quite-ground.  
  
When the smokey residue of quintessence clears, Zarkon stands over the Champion, and the Champion lies sprawled in a crater of astral essence, unmoving. He isn’t dead, not yet—his stubbornness still holds his form together. Zarkon expects nothing less of anyone who managed to survive in the gladiator arenas for as long as this one did.   
  
His stubbornness holds him together, but in every other sense, he is finished. His will grows weaker by the moment, and he no longer has the strength to move. He stares up at Zarkon, and barely manages a gag of protest and a weak attempt to free himself when Zarkon wraps one hand around his tiny, fragile Earthling neck.  
  
“Do you think the Black Lion would allow such a feeble creature to pilot it?” Zarkon asks, as he digs his claws a little further into the other paladin’s neck. The Champion gasps for breath—he believes he still needs air, and subsequently, he suffers because of his own mind when Zarkon squeezes. He struggles weakly, raising both hands—broken flesh and quintessence-laced metal—to cling to Zarkon’s wrist, struggling to support himself. There’s no strength left in those fingers. Zarkon barely feels the touch of them.   
  
Weak. So _weak_. So completely _worthless_ , undeserving of the title of black paladin. He cannot save the universe—he cannot even save _himself._ This thing could never fight the Devourer—the most he could do was let it into the world, and that Zarkon will _never_ allow.  
  
“Only the powerful can command it,” Zarkon continues, as he hoists the paladin into the air. Even in the physical plane, this creature would be easy to lift, but here he is weightless if Zarkon wills it.   
  
Around him, the stars of the astral plane begin to blink out of existence, one by one. This part of the plane is directly linked to the Black Lion and its paladin—and it recognizes that one of those minds is dying. Good. The faster, the better. Soon the crisis will be averted.  
  
The Champion struggles in his grip, clings harder to his wrist. After a moment, his metal hand begins to glow with energy again, although the attempt is so weak Zarkon doesn’t even feel the heat of it. He rasps weakly around his stolen breath, “You’ve…forgotten what’s most important…between a Lion and its paladin. It’s not about power…it’s about earning each others’ trust…”  
  
Zarkon is enraged again at that. How dare this idealistic fool try to lecture him _again_. What does _he_ know of trust? _He_ has yet to feel the Black Lion truly turn on him, hasn’t he? _He_ hasn’t waited ten thousand years to find his old partner again, only for another to be chosen. He hasn’t been outright _attacked_ by his partner. _He_ hasn’t had the Black Lion believe in him so strongly when all others doubted, only to have that belief denied in favor of willing ignorance. _He_ has never been so blatantly betrayed, in bond, in body, and in soul.  
  
Trust? Hah! There is no trust to be _had_ with the Black Lion. The indecisive and fickle creature threw it away the first moment it could. This pilot would learn that too, one day—assuming he lived that long.   
  
Zarkon doesn’t intend to let him.  
  
“Trust has nothing to do with it,” Zarkon tells him flatly. He barely keeps the bitterness and disgust out of his voice. “The Lion is mine. Forever.” Because if trust will not do—if the traitorous creature will not fulfill its purpose out of bond and loyalty, like Zarkon had once believed it would—then he will _make_ it help him save the universe through force. If that is the only way, then so be it.   
  
He digs his claws in deeper, squeezes tightly. The astral plane grows darker still. The Champion cries out in pain, and Zarkon can feel his fragile neck starting to grind under the pressure of his fingers. Just a few ticks more, and at least one urgent countdown in his head will be silenced.  
  
The entire astral plane shakes as the Black Lion slams down beside them.  
  
Its immense form casts smoke of quintessence everywhere, and the fabric of the astral plane cracks beneath its massive claws. Gusts of wind blast out of nowhere, envisioned by the Lion, and send Zarkon’s cape fluttering. It crouches, and its mouth opens wide, glimmering brightly with energy as its laser cannon begins to charge.   
  
Zarkon’s eyes open wide. _What are you doing?_ he snarls to it mentally, as he drops the Champion. The other paladin collapses to the ground weakly, coughing, but Zarkon already ignores him in favor of gathering his will for defense. _Why do you attack?_  
  
 _I have chosen,_ the Black Lion answers.   
  
_Because of that ridiculous speech of trust?_ Zarkon snarls mentally at it. _I did trust you! I trusted in you for ten thousand years! I searched for you for millennia! Who betrayed who first? Who turned on who first? It’s you that can’t be trusted! You’ll turn on him too the moment it suits you, if you don’t get him consumed by the Devourer first! He isn’t strong enough for this—you know he isn’t!_  
  
 _I have chosen,_ the Black Lion repeats. _This is my paladin. Goodbye, Zarkon._  
  
And it fires.  
  
Zarkon gathers all of his willpower to shield himself, and it is only due to that, and his ten thousand years of training, that he survives a blast from the Black Lion directly in the astral plane at all. The Black Lion truly tried to _kill_ him then and there.   
  
But even with all his will and training, he is still knocked clear from the astral plane, and smashes back into his own body and the physical plane of reality with an unpleasant jolt. An unexpected offshoot of power bursts out of the ritual circle he crouches in. The remainder sparks over him and the platform he crouches on as he recovers from the disorientation.   
  
“Sire!” Haggar says, alarmed. “What is it?”  
  
Zarkon digs into his own mind again, probing at the bond for the Black Lion. It is still there, but it feels…weaker, somehow. The Black Lion had tried to sever it. It had not succeeded completely, but it is much more difficult to reach—and he suspects it will be much more difficult to follow that thread to wherever the Black Lion hides.   
  
“My connection grows weaker,” Zarkon says. “We must hurry if we ever wish to reclaim Voltron.”  
  
Because he has made a terrible mistake. He thought killing the Champion in the astral plane would allow him to eradicate the threat completely. But he had not counted on the Black Lion’s interference—and now, not only does the Champion have a better idea of its abilities, but Zarkon has inadvertently strengthened their own bond, too.   
  
Time is running out. Every tick counting down grows louder in his mind, booming, resonant. The Black Lion has accepted a naive, idealistic, weak fool as its paladin, one that is just strong enough to open the way to the void and yet never will be strong enough to fight the thing that comes out of it.   
  
He _must_ find the Black Lion. Nothing else matters.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out that gorgeous storm Curiosity-killed painted! I absolutely love the environment in this image!


	7. Chapter 7

After that quintent, for the first time in ten thousand years, Zarkon truly begins to feel desperate.  
  
Always before he has felt the press of time, the urgency of being prepared for the coming of the Devourer, the fear of not being ready to combat that otherworldly presence in the void. It is a pressure that has haunted him since the day he saw those thousand burning eyes, and he has felt every tick of every quintent of every decafeeb count down in his head. He has felt the passage of ten millennia and known it is barely a dobosh to the Devourer, and that it could come at any moment. He does know what fear is.   
  
But never before has he felt it so strongly inside his own _world._ The threat before has always come from the void, but Zarkon has _always_ been strong enough to unify planet after planet on his own, with his people, with his strengths, with his skills. Never before has _anything_ within the universe itself caused him to be afraid—always, his fears have been cast towards the Devourer, and time itself.  
  
But now… _now_ , for the first time in ten thousand years, he fears for the universe as it risks tearing itself apart from the inside. Voltron has become more than a nuisance—it is now a damning threat. And most frightening of all is its new head, the Champion. Never since Alfor has Zarkon feared so badly what a single mortal individual could do to the universe. And Alfor, at least, had not had the key to the universe sitting unknowing at his fingertips.   
  
But the new black paladin is closer than ever to it, and getting stronger by the quintent. And for the first time, Zarkon is afraid of that threat, enough to make him desperate to act in counterpoint.   
  
Because he can see now. _Nothing_ else matters but the Black Lion. He _must_ have it again.   
  
He searches again, with the ritual Haggar devised. And again, when that one fails, and again, when that one does as well. The ritual uses the same methods as before, according to Haggar, but it is no longer strong enough. Zarkon follows the thread in his mind that leads from his bond out into the depths of space, but it’s like that thread disappears into a fog bank in his mind. He can’t see where it leads; he only knows it goes _somewhere_ and he must follow it.  
  
Haggar insists that he rest. “The ritual is taxing on you, sire,” she insists. “It is a great deal of power you are trying to process. Even with the armor, even with your training, it maybe more than you can handle.”   
  
He refuses to accept that as an answer. He is not weak. He can handle any danger thrown at him, any power, anything he must. If he cannot handle this, he cannot face the Devourer, and what will the point of the last ten thousand years have been?   
  
He orders the ritual to be completed again. And when that fails once more, he insists on still _more_ power being used in it, _more_ quintessence channeled, _more_ planets harvested. Any drop of quintessence they gain now from their vast number of resources goes to finding the Black Lion.  
  
More power helps, a little. His bones seem to burn with so much extra energy that no Galra was ever meant to take, and he can barely stand after each ritual is complete, collapsing to his knees. But he can follow the thread to the Black Lion in his mind farther before it disappears into the mists of his mind and space.   
  
He needs _more._ More power still, to follow that thread into the mists and find where the Black Lion and its new paladin are hiding.   
  
Haggar does not seem to agree with his focus. She knows her place, and channels energy willingly into her rituals. But she becomes more and more insistent that he must rest. That there are other things to focus on. She tells him incessantly of her search for the spy in their midst, the one who shut down the solar barrier and freed Voltron. They must find him, she insists. The Emperor must devote himself to other things as well. His Empire must stand, and they must see their leader to do so.  
  
Zarkon doesn’t care. She doesn’t understand the magnitude of the situation. The Black Lion is _everything._ The clock is counting louder, each tick a resounding boom now, and _everything_ rests on Champion’s shoulders.   
  
The Empire is ten thousand years worth of work, but if it comes to it, Zarkon can rebuild it. He cannot rebuild the universe, if the Devourer finds the way opened.   
  
He insists on more power still. It is taxing to the point of being agonizing, but he endures for the small bit of distance he gains in his mind to the Black Lion.  
  
It is taxing on Haggar’s druids too, he notes. They have difficulty channeling so much raw void magic and quintessence. They sometimes collapse halfway through a ritual, gasping behind their masks. Two succumb to the void madness, unable to sustain channeling for so long. Haggar has them disposed of before they can become a bigger threat.   
  
The divide between the remaining druids grows stronger, the more power he demands. Haggar attends to other things more and more these quintents, leaving her druids to attend to Zarkon’s rituals. But it becomes clear who they believe they must truly defer to when they halt their casting in mid ritual without his order.   
  
The pain in his joints is excruciating from the sudden burst of energy as the ritual fails. He collapses to one knee, weary despite all of his strength. “Why have you stopped?”  
  
“My lord,” the lead druid answers, “Haggar ordered us to limit your—“  
  
He doesn’t let the druid finish, lashing out with his bayard to kill the man instantly. _Haggar_ ordered them? To limit _him?_ To _limit_ him in any way? She has been overstepping her boundaries too often of late. Ten thousand years ago she swore allegiance to _him_ , insisted _he_ was the only one capable of defeating the darkness at the roots of the world. Yet she refuses to accept his orders now? He will see to that.  
  
But later. Later, after he has found the Black Lion again. The Lion is the only thing that matters, over even that insurrection. For now, it is enough that these druids know who _truly_ is in charge, and remember who they answer to. “Remember who your master is,” he warns. “Now give me _more!_ ”   
  
They do. Solemn and shaky, they raise their arms and channel their energies, but they do not obey Haggar. They obey him.   
  
They obey him, and with just a little more power his mind is able to follow the trail to the Black Lion just a little bit father. It stretches across galaxies now, lightyears away, and still disappears into the mist.  
  
But he is closer. Closer still, and he can feel it. He just needs a little more power. Just a little more, and he can finally find the Black Lion, before ten thousand years of progress and ten thousand sacrifices are squandered by the fool that calls himself ‘paladin.’   
  
Just a little more, and he can end all of this.

* * *

  
  
It is nearly two spicolian movements later when he finally finds the Black Lion.  
  
It begins with Haggar arriving to interrupt yet another power-infused ritual. The raw quintessence converted into void magic overwhelms his senses and is painful down to his bones, but it doesn’t matter—his _mind_ is strengthened by it, able to search far. But still it is not enough.   
  
When the power suddenly ceases and he collapses to the ritual platform, it takes him a moment to regain his focus. These rituals will tear him apart if he does not find the Black Lion soon.  
  
A necessary sacrifice, though. Not even he is exempt.   
  
“Why do you disturb me?” he snaps over his shoulder. He can feel Haggar there by the strength of her power alone.  
  
“My apologies, sire,” she says. “I fear your singular focus has—“  
  
“Has _what?”_ He glares warningly over his shoulder at her. He will not accept reprimands and snide remarks from anyone who has sworn their service to him, not even Haggar, no matter how much he trusts her. Especially about something she simply does not and cannot comprehend. She would do well to remember that.  
  
She seems to realize she’s gone too far, because she drops her head submissively and says, “I’ve…overstepped my bounds.” She hesitates a moment, then adds, “We’ve apprehended a spy within our ranks. He plans something with an outside force. I suspect an attack is imminent.”  
  
“Let your druids find out what he knows,” Zarkon says dismissively. To find the spy is important, but not so important as his own work.   
  
“You will stay here,” he orders. “The only thing that matters to me is getting the Black Lion. I need the power you possess to search the galaxy.” Perhaps participating in the ritual, rather than being permitted to handle affairs independently elsewhere, will remind her who exactly is in charge here and _why_ she swore allegiance to him ten thousand years ago.   
  
More importantly, Haggar is the most skilled caster Zarkon has ever seen. Her druids are simply not powerful enough by comparison to give him the boost in energy he needs to breach the mists protecting the Black Lion. She is powerful enough to make him stronger, and he must find the Lion. _Nothing_ else matters, not now. Not when it comes to protecting the entire universe.  
  
She does not look pleased, but she does as ordered, proving that she still acknowledges him as her leader. She dismisses one of the druids to deal with the interrogation and takes his place on the ritual platform, adding her own powerful channeling to the ritual as they begin once again. The resulting power is nearly overwhelming, suffusing his entire body and all but burning him alive inside—but his mind goes farther than it ever has before.  
  
And for the first time, he pierces the mists, and follows the trail in his head all the way to the Black Lion.  
  
It’s only for a second—his mind crosses paths with the Black Lion, and just barely brushes over the surface thoughts of its new pilot. The surprise of it causes his mind to snap back to his body in a rush. He collapses to the ritual platform with a gasp, gritting his teeth against the feeling of roasting alive inside his bones from so much raw energy.   
  
But when he can speak again, he rasps, “I have found the Lion.”   
  
He delivers the coordinates to his men immediately, and orders his full fleet to prepare for the transport. They barely have enough fuel collected from the Komar for a full transport—Zarkon has been using nearly every drop for his rituals—but it is just enough for one jump at hyperspeed. He will not be able to chase the paladins if they flee again, like last time.  
  
But he doesn’t intend to let them flee. All he needs is _one_ chance to get close to the Black Lion. Just _one_ chance to reclaim it. He will even sacrifice Voltron as a whole, as long as he can get his hands on the Black Lion. As long as he can reclaim the key to the void, and keep it far, far out of reach of _anyone_ who could open the door for those thousand burning eyes, willingly or otherwise.  
  
They come out of hyperspeed in wide open space. Zarkon surveys from the ritual deck as his men start attacking from their battle ships. But the only opposition they find is the Black Lion. No other Voltron Lions. Not Voltron itself. Not even the Castle of Lions there for support.  
  
 _Trap,_ he knows immediately. The Black Lion hasn’t come to him or called for him—there is no way it’s rescinded its choice and come out to meet him. Nor has Champion chosen to change alignment—he _felt_ that man’s soul in the astral plane, so diametrically opposed to his own, and knows there is no way he would ever consider joining the Empire. But there is no reason for them to be out here in deep space alone.   
  
Zarkon has waged war for ten thousand years to unify the entire universe. He knows bait when he sees it.  
  
He knows it, but he doesn’t care. He will spring the trap if need be, as long as it gives him a chance to get close to the Lion. He _must_ reclaim it—absolutely nothing else matters, not if the universe is to survive.   
  
He orders his men to send in their fighters, surround the Black Lion, hem it in towards him. He orders every single ship to engage, to draw the Lion in, to get his own ship close enough for him to strike with his will. He _will_ have it. He will _not_ fail in this mission.  
  
Champion is, as much as it pains Zarkon to admit it, a competent pilot. He leads Zarkon’s fighters on a wild chase, dodging, rolling and striking with skill enhanced with the Black Lion’s strength. He has even developed enough skill to take out entire warships solo—a feat they were barely able to handle against Sendak when all five worked together.   
  
As a paladin he still fights like a novice, though, barely taking advantage of the most basic of the Black Lion’s abilities. He’s discovered the jaw blade, it seems, and has worked out how to use the wingplates to maneuver more efficiently. But he doesn’t use the plane shift, and the wingplates don’t grow any further. Zarkon is relived to see this, no matter how many of his fighters are destroyed even with the most basic elements of the Black Lion. Champion has not had a chance to progress further in his bond. There is still time to salvage the situation.  
  
“Flank the Black Lion!” he orders. “Surround him!”  
  
“Sire!” Haggar calls, even as she channels still more power into him. “I fear this could be a trap!”  
  
She doesn’t need to tell him that. That it is a trap has never been more apparent. Several other Lions have appeared now to assist Champion—but he notices the Red Lion is suspiciously absent. The red paladin of old would never so easily be removed from such a firefight, and he saw enough of the new red paladin’s battle mentality when they last fought to know this new one is not so easily left out, either. The Red Lion revels in combat. If it is missing, there is a reason for that.   
  
But it doesn’t matter. _None_ of it matters. Even if this is a trap, Zarkon’s fleet outnumbers the four Lions one hundred to one. And even if it did not, as long as he can get close enough to the Black Lion to overpower it, he can interrupt their trap in less than a tick. The Black Lion, whatever else, is clearly central to their plans. He will remove it from the equation, as well as from their control.   
  
It is safe with _no one_ else besides himself.   
  
“Get me more power,” he orders, ignoring Haggar’s warning. “I _must_ connect to the Black Lion!”   
  
The charge increases. The power is nearly overwhelming, but Zarkon barely feels any of the pain now. The Black Lion is in his sights; it gives him focus. So close. _So close._ Just a little more time, and he will reclaim it.   
  
But then the power vanishes again, and Zarkon returns to his own mind, just in time to hear Haggar snap, “He’s working with the paladins. It _was_ a trap!”  
  
Zarkon pants from the exhaustion of trying to maintain for so long under so much power, tries for a moment to reorganize his thoughts. The spy. Thace. Working with the paladins somehow as a part of whatever trap they were lured into?   
  
Enough. Zarkon has had _enough_ of their ridiculous games. If he must trigger their trap, so be it, but if they are going to so brazenly show their moves, he will destroy _all_ of them. He is _tired_ of this farce. “Get the spy,” he orders Haggar. She is his most powerful—she will utterly decimate them for ever trying to cross him. “I will _end_ this firefight.”  
  
He will end this personally if he must.   
  
But Haggar has barely left his presence before something new happens—the Castle of Lions reappears out of thin air, surrounded by a massive circular structure almost directly above his own ship. How they managed the cloaking Zarkon isn’t entirely sure, but it’s clear they intended to take him by surprise. _This_ is the center of their trap, and the Lions had been a distraction.  
  
But he knows they wouldn’t have appeared so recklessly above him _now_. He has no idea what manner of attack this is, but the fact that they’re just sitting there indicates they weren’t ready to be seen yet. He doesn’t know how they got this close—but he doesn’t intend to let them get away with whatever it is they are planning.   
  
The Black Lion is paramount, but without its trap and without its support, it is only a matter of time until it is Zarkon’s again.  
  
“Charge the ion cannon!” he orders. “Take it down!”  
  
His ship’s ion cannon is massive; it will swallow the Castle of Lions and a significant portion of its weapon. It takes time to charge, but the Castle of Lions certainly won’t be maneuverable enough to avoid it, lashed to that massive ring as it is. This fight is his.  
  
Too late, he realizes the true extent of the trap, when the lights on the ritual deck suddenly power down. Eyes wide, he watches as the lights on the rest of the ship’s surface slowly wink out into black; as the ion cannon shuts down in mid-charge; as the fighters linked to his personal ship go dull and float aimlessly in space. And at the same moment, the massive ring surrounding the Castle of Lions glows brightly, and an equally massive blue wormhole swirls into existence—directly over his ship.   
  
“No!” he roars, enraged. How had this _happened?_ This trap has too many moving parts, too many layers—it shouldn’t have even been possible, even with the help of a spy internally.   
  
But he’s helpless to do anything at all as the wormhole descends on his ship, gradually swallowing it whole. He watches in fury as the massive power of the wormhole overloads the systems of the lesser warships and fighters. They explode the moment that energy touches them, decimating half of his personal fleet instantly. The wormhole doesn’t harm his own ship, or any of the individuals on it, but the sensation of traveling through a wormhole infuriates him all the same. It’s familiar, that strange stomach-churning sensation of moving too fast and yet barely at all. It reminds him of days long gone by ten thousand years, before the Devourer changed everything.   
  
Even Alfor, he thinks, would have been impressed with the size of this wormhole. Wormhole travel through even the Castle of Lions had left Alfor worn out for quintents sometimes, and had taken a sizable amount of his power. His daughter is quite skilled—in another life, in another world in which Alfor had truly trusted in and believe him, perhaps he would have been proud to see such a display of power as they fought the Devourer together.  
  
The wormhole spits them out in a wide open, starry expanse. The whole of space seems tainted red from the nebulas in the distance, and stars dot the horizon in every direction, with no sign of anything else. The paladins intend to have this battle somewhere no one can be harmed, it seems.  
  
That is fine with Zarkon. If they think he is crippled just because his ship no longer works, they are _badly_ mistaken. He will destroy them in the depths of space where _they_ can harm no part of _his_ universe. Then he will take Voltron—will take the _Black Lion_ —back where it belongs, to serve its final duty in defense of the universe against the Devourer itself.  
  
He will not let them run any longer. Everything, _everything_ , ends here.  
  
Even as he gives orders for his men to begin fixing the ship, Voltron forms before him and begins to strike. They know exactly what parts of his ship they are targeting; the spy must have given them schematics. It’s an unfortunate inconvenience, but nothing more. Ships can be fixed. They can be built. If it holds Voltron’s attention long enough for him to strike, he is satisfied.  
  
“Our ship may be without power, but we are not,” Haggar says. She appears somewhat battered from whatever had happened to shut down the systems, and he can see the fury in her eyes. She trails after him as he exits the ritual deck. “I can use the Komar to draw the quintessence directly from Voltron, rendering him lifeless.”   
  
Zarkon freezes in mid stride. Render Voltron _lifeless?_ Voltron is _needed_ for the fight against the Devourer. If it becomes necessary he will sacrifice the limbs to reclaim at least the Black Lion, but to steal the quintessence from even the head will doom them in more ways than one.   
  
He says nothing for a long moment, but Haggar seems to realize she’s misspoken. Fury radiates off of him in waves, and she is nothing if not observant. When his disapproval is clear, he speaks. “It is time I face Voltron myself.”   
  
No more letting them run. No more letting them endanger everything. It is _past_ time for him to get involved.  
  
Haggar does not agree. “No, lord!” she argues, her voice full of shock, with just a touch of horror. “It is certain death!”  
  
He disregards her fears. They mean nothing to him, and she is wrong here. “Today, the Black Lion will be mine,” he insists.  
  
“Your obsession with the Black Lion is clouding your judgement!” she argues, frantic and angry. “You must not go out there!”  
  
He ignores her. His so-called _obsession_ doesn’t cloud his judgement at all—he is the _only_ one here capable of seeing the real dangers, and the real necessities. The Black Lion is the key to _everything_. It is the entire reason the Empire was formed, and the entire reason they fight now. He _must_ have it. Nothing else matters. _Nothing._   
  
He leaves her and her druids behind. He can hear her yelling about protecting their Emperor to her casters; at least he knows her loyalties have not been diverted from him yet. He has not forgotten what _her_ real purpose is either. For ten thousand year they have aligned—they have started to fracture now, but they are not yet broken.  
  
It will be enough. It _must_ be.  
  
He heads down to the experimentation deck, ignoring the muffled booms as Voltron tears apart his ship, ignoring the way the whole structure shakes and crumbles around him. The moment he reaches the hangar, he snaps, “Ready my armor.”  
  
His specialized armor. It’s the work he had commissioned centuries ago, back when he had been sure Voltron would never be found again, when he had begun to despair that Alfor really _had_ destroyed the Lions. Haggar had told him it would be difficult to create, and she had not been wrong. The armor has gone through hundreds of tests and specs, adjusting time and time again for each failure. Zarkon had demanded something equal to Voltron, something he could use to fight the Devourer head on the moment it poured into the world, but something that he could control himself, too. The likes of Voltron had only been built once in the past, and those responsible were long dead. Replicating even a fraction of its power had been an exercise of near futility.  
  
But after centuries of work, this current form is possibly the closest his scientists have ever come to creating a new form of Voltron.   
  
It isn’t on par with a fully unlocked Voltron at maximum power. For the purposes of fighting the Devourer, this thing is a failure. But for the purposes of fighting five novice paladins in a Voltron that has barely rediscovered a fraction of its might, it will suit Zarkon’s purposes perfectly.  
  
The scientists inside seem startled by the request. “But, lord, it has never been successfully tested,” one argues. “To do—“  
  
He doesn’t let the man finish, casually slapping him aside with enough force to slam him into a wall. He doesn’t have time for their nonsense. Nor does he have time for his weak followers to argue with him, not when they don’t understand the risks. The man groans as he collapses. Zarkon turns to stare at the rest of his scientists, and they rush to obey.   
  
Good. He doesn’t need their warnings. He knows the armor isn’t complete, and he knows it is dangerous. He remembers Haggar’s reports that none have survived the use of it yet. But Zarkon is not a mere soldier, and this battle cannot be taken lightly. He _must_ have the Black Lion back. Time is running out; the new paladin is too close. He will take the risk. And he will reclaim the Black Lion, and all of Voltron, if he can.  
  
He steps inside the cabin, and his scientists rush to disconnect his armor from the ports and settle all connections into place. The black bayard he slots into the control device on the side, a detail he had insisted on from the first quintent to have it mimic the Lions as much as possible. The armor starts to power on as the cabin shutters closed around him.   
  
He settles into the armor. Closes his eyes as he reaches out with his mind, to feel it as an extension of his own body. He concentrates and connects himself to it, piece by piece. Legs, arms, wings, weapons; he must control all parts of it, unlike Voltron, and it takes longer to connect to each part of such a massive weapon. This is one of its flaws, one his scientists have been working on for nearly a century now. It takes practice to manage the entire thing properly, but Zarkon is the black paladin, and already skilled at maintaining balance throughout so many pieces. That was the purpose of the head of Voltron, after all.   
  
It also takes a great deal of mental concentration, and spiritual strength. The armor is massive, as large as Voltron, but unlike Voltron the burden of maintaining is not split amongst ten minds—it rides on one alone. Not even the armor itself can help in this regard. Unlike Voltron, and unlike the Lions, it possesses no soul of its own. It is an incredibly sophisticated piece of machinery, but it is only a machine, cold unfeeling metal infused with power that has no motivation or purpose of its own. That means there is no will to fight Zarkon’s, but it also means his will alone is the only thing that keeps it moving.   
  
Ultimately, this strain has been responsible for killing most of the test subjects. They aren’t strong enough to maintain battle armor of this vast size and ability. It shreds their minds apart and breaks their bodies under the stress.   
  
But they are _weak._ And Zarkon is not. He has spent ten thousand years training mind and body to fight the Devourer—to look into those ten thousand burning eyes and still find the strength to exist, to remember who he is, and to know his purpose. The burden of this armor is great, but it is nothing by comparison to that terrible crushing force in the void from so many millennia ago.   
  
It is dangerous. But Zarkon is strong, and his strength is fueled with purpose. Voltron _will_ be his again. The Black Lion _will_ be taken away from them, returned to his side, where he can keep it from causing any harm. He _will_ prepare the universe for the danger that waits at he roots of the world. He _will_ protect everything he once ever held dear, the trillions of planets and lives that exist, no matter what the cost to himself is.  
  
He is the black paladin. This was, and is, and always has been, and always _will_ be, his duty.  
  
He opens his eyes. The armor finishes powering up. He digs his claws into the controls.   
  
And he emerges for Voltron.  
  
He is not pleased to see that Voltron is inactive when his armor exits its specialized hangar. The massive weapon looks lifeless—suddenly he understands _precisely_ how Haggar and her druids intended to ‘protect’ their Emperor. If she has destroyed Voltron permanently, he will be furious. _Already_ he is furious—her blatant insubordination is becoming a problem. She agreed to serve him years ago to further her own goal—when all of this is over, he will _ensure_ that she remembers her oath. They cannot fight the void with the heart of the Empire splintered.  
  
Still, for now at least, it does make it easy to strike. Voltron is weak—its paladins must also be so. He lashes out with his willpower, a test strike, and catches the new black paladin unprotected. The Black Lion is not there to shield him, and he strikes a vicious blow mentally. He can feel the black paladin’s shock and pain, laced with a touch of fear and worry.   
  
Excellent.  
  
He launches forward in his armor. It responds quickly enough, now that he is fully connected with all its pieces, and he closes the distance quickly. But just before he can strike, his scanning systems ring in warning. He catches sight of the Castle of Lions closing in towards him, power charging for a massive blast.  
  
Of course, the Princess would do what she could to protect Voltron, even now. Her father was the same way.  
  
She will not find it so easy, this time.  
  
The bulk of Zarkon’s armor cannot take so deadly a blast, but the wings are a different matter. Forged of a rare metal, and infused with vast amounts of quintessence stored in sigils to increase its power, the wings are tools entirely of defense, able to withstand and deflect almost any form of attack. They had been designed to combat void magic, and could withstand the full force of a complete circle of Haggar’s druids, with herself at their head, flinging some of their most destructive spells. Early prototypes for the armor had used shields to replicate Voltron, but they were too bulky and created too much drag in combat tests, restricting weapons and causing imbalances. Haggar had, in the end, taken inspiration from Voltron in a different way. Wings were added instead to assist with balance and control, but they could also be adjusted to function as shields instead in the event of an emergency.  
  
They were designed to reflect void magic, but they work just as well on laser blasts. Zarkon commands those extensions of himself to form a shield as he turns to set his shoulder behind them, and the blast ricochets off of his wings into space. It doesn’t damage him, but the force of the blast in zero gravity drives him back into his own ship, and he smashes into the metal hard enough to leave a crater. And it doesn’t relent even then. The princess clearly intends to cover Voltron until it can either escape on its own or be dragged into the Castle by someone else.  
  
Zarkon does not intend to let them get away so easily. Once his back is to his ship, he is able to angle the body of the armor and the direction of the wings, and slowly the reflected blast is rotated around. The Castle of Lions bursts as its own firepower is used against it, and a moment later the beam winks out. The Castle isn’t completely destroyed, but it is certainly out of the fight, and he doubts anyone on the ship survived that much damage.  
  
The loss of the Castle of Lions is regrettable, but it’s a sacrifice Zarkon is willing to make all the same. And with the support ship out of the fight, he is able to focus all his energies on the paladins. He fixes his eyes on Voltron, and prepares to strike.  
  
The eyes of the Lions blink back to life one by one as Zarkon uses his bayard to summon the armor’s sword. In a way, Zarkon finds it a relief. Haggar has not destroyed Voltron completely. Its paladins were able to revive it. That will be their last gift to the universe.   
  
But now he will take back what is his.   
  
They clash in a burst of power, sending sparks of energy everywhere. Sword strikes sword, dragging fire through space, and Zarkon trades blow after blow with Voltron head on. His armor is not nearly as fast or responsive as he would like—it isn’t the lightning-fast reflexes of a paladin’s mind melded perfectly to a living machine. It’s cold steel and colder magic, lifeless and only as strong or as fast as his scientists can create it. Against the paladins of old, there would be no contest here—the armor is simply not qualified enough to be of service yet.  
  
But it’s still fast enough to keep up with _this_ Voltron—this weapon piloted by inexperienced, naive paladins who barely understand a fraction of the power that they have at their fingertips.  
  
He strikes hard and fast. His armor does have some advantage—he outweighs Voltron considerably, and can use that force to his advantage even in the depths of space. His eight wings provide excellent counter-balance against each strike of Voltron’s, and with his mind connected to each and every piece he has a minute and highly detailed level of control over every movement he makes. Within doboshes he is able to send Voltron spinning away from the force of his attacks, and the weapon immediately flees. He follows the trail of blue-white light from its thrusters with all the power in his armor’s own, gaining on them slowly but surely.   
  
They will not run again. He _will not_ allow it.  
  
Voltron goes for distance, and tries to strike at range with its laser cannons. They think themselves safe at range—what novices. Zarkon dodges easily, and fires back with his own blasts even as he closes the distance. They try to throw more power at him instead with the Yellow Lion’s shoulder cannon, and Zarkon grimaces in disgust at their foolishness. Did they not see him deflect the blast of the Castle of Lions itself? The shoulder cannon hardly compares. With a thought he rearranges the wingblades of his armor for full one-hundred-eighty degree protection, and deflects the blast easily. His disgust grows stronger when he realizes they haven’t even found the way to upgrade it yet—this blast is purely the blast of the base cannon.   
  
Novices. _Weaklings._ They don’t even deserve the power of Voltron. They don’t know how to use it to protect _anything._ And yet they dare to fight against him?   
  
He will teach them.   
  
A glimmer from the ship is his only warning before Haggar strikes again with the Komar. Zarkon is _furious_ —did she not see how she had nearly destroyed Voltron _last_ time? They cannot afford to destroy the weapon, not when it is this close! Voltron dodges the strike, but Zarkon renews his attack with added ruthlessness nonetheless, smashing into it at full speed and sending it flying. He must finish this fight quickly and retake Voltron himself, before Haggar can do irreversible damage in her so-called attempts to ‘help.’ Perhaps she really _is_ trying to protect him, but the Black Lion is as much a key to victory or defeat as he is—he _cannot_ afford to lose it.  
  
Voltron recovers from that strike quickly, but Zarkon is relentless. He uses every advantage he has—his superior weight, his stronger thruster capacity, his ten thousand years of experience in combat. Each sword strike is powerful and ruthless, cutting down Voltron’s defenses and forcing it back. Up close he never permits them to get a blow in edgewise, always moving, always striking. When they run to try and gain distance for a ranged attack, he is always quick to block using his wing-shields, shifting between their protection and into a new attack fluidly.   
  
Voltron falls back under the assault, trying to flee again and again to gain distance and breathing room, but Zarkon doesn’t let it. _Hound them,_ he tells himself. _Don’t give them a chance to recover. Don’t give them a chance to think. Let them panic. Let them know fear. It will weaken Voltron still further. It will be your opportunity._   
  
Because Voltron is powerful—but the cracks in its armor are not physical. They are all in the minds of its paladins. And a break there is the surest way to ultimately strike against it.  
  
And at last—at last, after doboshes of striking, blocking, slamming into them at full force, chasing, dodging, always relentlessly pursuing—he finds his chance. This close to Voltron now, he can feel the Black Lion, and feel too, the exhaustion of its paladin. The others must be much the same—Voltron is growing slower, less coordinated, and it is all from their fear and unease. “This is my time to reclaim the Black Lion,” he snarls. “ _Nothing_ can stop me!”  
  
And he slams his will in at the black paladin, just like he has twice before.  
  
It’s more difficult, this time. He can’t force his will completely between the paladin and the Black Lion like before. He doesn’t have the power of the druids to boost him, and the Black Lion itself intercedes, shielding its paladin’s mind from harm. _Not for you,_ the Black Lion insists angrily. _Enough! Be gone!_   
  
But even though he can’t intercede completely, it is enough. The black paladin’s will still struggles against Zarkon’s own, and it’s enough to make the paladin’s control over the rest of Voltron sloppy. The other minds trying to support their leader, but it distracts them from the battle. They strike, but the strike is weak—and in that moment, they leave themselves exposed.  
  
Zarkon does not waste the opportunity. He transforms his bayard’s sword into its chain form, and strikes. The weapon wraps around the head of Voltron, and Zarkon triggers its power. Magic-enhanced bolts of electricity crackle over Voltron at an astonishing rate, and with it, Zarkon knows without a doubt, comes _pain._ This close, connected to Voltron with his own weapon, he can _feel_ the agony of the black paladin, _feel_ the astonishment of the Black Lion. Their defenses are _weak_ in that moment. They are helpless.  
  
Zarkon once more slams his mind into the mental matrix of Voltron, smashing his way through the black paladin’s consciousness ruthlessly, and forces it apart.   
  
The Lions scatter, spinning through space. Zarkon recalls his weapon, and regards them all with disgust. “You should have fled like your predecessors,” he mutters. Not that he would have let them. But the fact that they are so pathetically weak, and yet still chose to attempt to fight, shows just how woefully unprepared for their duty as paladins they truly are.   
  
But now they are finished, and so is the era of paladins. He will assign his own most worthy men to the Lions to fight the Devourer, but they will understand their new purpose. Their _real_ purpose. Not like these fools.   
  
No, these fools are done.   
  
And still, they spread out and prepare to fight against him. The limbs of Voltron, these new paladins, are nothing if not loyal. It is a trait that might have been worthy of Voltron, he supposes, but loyalty alone does not make a paladin.  
  
The Black Lion does not try to fight. It does not move at all. Zarkon is not surprised. He can feel the black paladin’s mind even now—they will forever be connected until one of them is truly dead, he thinks—but that mind is fractured. It couldn’t withstand the force of the mental strike when Zarkon’s will overpowered his own. It’s barely even aware.   
  
_Weak._ So weak. The creature in the void would have devoured this paladin’s soul whole. It is almost a mercy to kill him here and now.   
  
Zarkon narrows his eyes, and aims for the Black Lion. The other Lions get in his way, striking, blasting and cutting. He beats them aside effortlessly, and decimates them. His armor is more than a match for their Voltron—against their individual Lions, he is practically a god. He damages them just enough to put them out of the fight, to batter them into forced standby modes as they struggle to repair, to overpower the senses of the paladins to force them to halt. _Just enough_ to preserve Voltron but destroy his enemies.  
  
Almost, they are his. _All_ of them.  
  
And then, when his victory is nearly complete, he senses it again—the presence of the Black Lion. The presence of its new paladin. Still weakened, still exhausted, but rebuilding itself. Resolute. Determined.   
  
He smashes the Green and Red Lions aside easily with the chain whip extension of his weapon, and turns to find the Black Lion rushing at him.   
  
“Very well then,” he growls. If this is truly how the black paladin wishes to die, so be it. And if this is truly how the Black Lion wishes to see its paladin die, then he will fulfill that wish and _gladly._   
  
But as the Black Lion rushes towards him, Zarkon feels unease. Because he can feel its power growing, suddenly. Coalescing in a way he has not felt in over ten thousand years. He can feel the raw determination and belief coming from its chosen paladin. And as the Black Lion soars towards him, its wings—not wingplates—spread wide, and and it _roars_ in challenge.  
  
 _No._  
  
The Black Lion surges forward in sudden, near untraceable speed. It is only Zarkon’s millennia of training, and his own abilities as the black paladin, that let him follow the sudden movement at all.   
  
_No!_   
  
And the Black Lion _vanishes._ It’s not gone, not really. For a moment only, it phases into another form of matter entirely, something of pure spirit, and blasts through physical matter as though it doesn’t exist at all. Zarkon _feels_ the black paladin’s spirit cross with his own—and he feels the determination, but also the raw _shock_ , of Champion.  
  
 _No, no, no, no!_  
  
He senses the Black Lion’s mind reach out, directing the black paladin’s own consciousness. He senses them reach together, the black paladin in confusion, the Black Lion in determination, for the black bayard in Zarkon’s own hand. The bayard is tugged free of its port, pulled free of his hand. Then it disappears into the plane of spirit as the Black Lion finishes ghosting through solid matter with its paladin in tow.  
  
The Black Lion appears behind his armor again, blinking out of the form of spirit back into the form of matter, and its wings fold closed.   
  
And in that moment, Zarkon hears the loud, booming thuds of the second clock, counting down ever louder, suddenly and irreversibly _stop._   
  
The silence is deafening.   
  
And Zarkon knows, in that moment, without a doubt, that time is up.   
  
The paladin knows. This is what he as _always_ feared, from the moment Sendak first reported the return of Voltron. The paladin knows enough to know how to phase shift—but Zarkon had felt his shock, his confusion, and his fear, even as he had felt his exhilaration, in that one moment they crossed souls. He knows enough to use the skill—but he doesn’t know enough to control it, to know the danger.   
  
He has the key to the void. He has it in his fingers, in the lock. And he doesn’t understand the danger on the other side. He doesn’t even know it _exists._   
  
“No, no, _no!_ ” Zarkon snarls. He’s furious, but even more than that, he’s terrified. He has perhaps a matter of doboshes before the paladin tries to use the new ability again, exhilarated and desperate for success, and that desperation, that _need_ , breeds the power needed for a plane shift.   
  
He sits on a time bomb and he doesn’t understand it is even _there._  
  
Zarkon has to kill him _. Now._ All of them. Voltron too, if he has to. There’s no other choice. _There’s no other choice._ The black paladin _has_ to die before he can kill them all. If Voltron itself has to die for that too, then it is a necessary sacrifice for the universe.  
  
He strikes, and this time, his attacks are made not with rage, not with impending victory, but with desperation. They’ve formed Voltron again, and their minds appear bolstered by their moderate success. Zarkon doesn’t let them gain ground from it. He strikes with everything he has, taking advantage of every strength he has at his disposal. The armor is weaker without the black bayard to coordinate its energies and direct its abilities, and controlling it is more of a struggle, but he doesn’t care. He must win. _He must win._ The entire universe depends on his survival.   
  
He. Cannot. Lose.  
  
He starts to feel Voltron’s desperation in its own moves. More than anything, _both_ sides wish to finish this battle. They both come arrowing in at each other for the final strikes, fueled by fury and fear, and crash together in a burst of crackling energy.   
  
Zarkon grits his teeth together in pain as the armor starts blaring warnings, screaming about high damage readings. Voltron had gotten a lucky strike at the torso of his armor, piercing partway through.   
  
No matter. The shield-wings would have deflected the strike, but Zarkon doesn’t want to defend. He wants to attack. He wants to _kill._ He needs to _win_. He has to.   
  
And Voltron’s attack is damaging—but it also puts the mighty weapon within range. With a snarl, Zarkon reaches out and snatches the weapon’s head in his armor’s hands. He puts everything he has into his attack, redirecting all energies, all magical abilities, all powers in all his systems into the laser blast as he holds the head of Voltron at point blank range. This close, they can’t escape. This close, it will fry _everything_ within Voltron—the systems, and more importantly, the pilots.  
  
The power in his hands crackles and overloads, and he fires.  
  
With this much wild power this close, he can _feel_ the black paladin’s agony once more as the strike hits. _Good_ , Zarkon thinks, as he roars out loud and puts all of his concentration into the attack. _Good! Die! Die before you are_ ever _a threat to this universe ever again!_   
  
But the black paladin doesn’t die. He can barely move, but he fights back anyway. Zarkon feels it in his mind—and sees it, when the Blazing Sword of Voltron reaches its one hundred percent upgrade from the use of _all_ the bayards, and severs clean through his armor’s waist.  
  
Zarkon gasps in pain as the mental connections his mind has to the various extremities of his armor start to break. The armor is falling apart—and in doing so, it is inadvertently taking him with it. It hurts on a profound level, but it’s still _nothing_ like the way his soul was flayed ten thousand years ago by the void. He sets his jaw against the pain and readies his defenses.   
  
He is not dead yet. He will fight. He will _keep fighting._ The universe needs him to. _He must_. He swore over ten thousand years ago to uphold that duty and he has done so every day of his life for millennia. He is not defeated yet.  
  
But then he feels the raw determination of the black paladin. Desperate to defend, to protect, to strike in time, to be fast enough, to be strong enough. He feels the black paladin’s mind rush through all of those thoughts all at once, and he feels the Black Lion rise to respond, even in Voltron.   
  
And Zarkon’s soul goes cold with dread as, even as Voltron strikes out again with the Blazing Sword, he feels the black paladin’s mind start to vanish.  
  
And the second thundering clock and its hundred million booming ticks goes deadly silent.  
  
 _No!_ he roars in his head. _No! No no no! You don’t understand what you’ve done! You don’t understand what’s out there! You don’t understand what death you bring on the universe!_   
  
He sacrifices every part of his defense, reaches out with his mind and every scrap of power and control he has left to try and catch the black paladin’s mind and body in any way he can, drag him forcibly back if he has to. It will mean saving an enemy, but he will save Champion and any of the others a million times over and a million times again before he will _ever_ permit that thing to enter the world. He reaches out, and his mind brushes Champion’s, and—  
  
—and Voltron’s final strike hits, and he loses his grasp on that soul, that mind, that quintessence, and it spirals away into the void.   
  
_NO!_  
  
The Blazing Sword cuts deep, slicing the armor to pieces from hip to head. The strike damages armor’s systems to the point of overload, and it shreds into Zarkon’s mental connections to each limb. He gasps as the pain strikes deep into his own mind and body, without anything to mitigate the damage; he’d dropped all of his defenses to try and drag the black paladin back, without success. The armor’s warnings scream loudly as they report hundreds, thousands of malfunctions, each in rapid succession, each building on the other. The heat is overwhelming, burning at his skin and his mind alike. He is in agony as the entire construct begins to fall apart around him.  
  
And yet through all of it, the pain, the noise, the blinding light, his mind is only numb. Numb, and fading fast.  
  
 _No,_ he thinks. _No, it can’t end like this. They don’t know the risk. They don’t understand. They don’t know what I’ve_ done _for them, for all of them! They’ve opened the door for a monster and they don’t even understand what it is they’ve done! They can’t…they can’t…no…no…but Haggar will…Haggar knows. She still…knows. Lotor…knows. He’s…he’s trained for this…Haggar will guide him…there may still…still be time…_  
  
 _I just had to…had to protect them. I had to…I had to…even if no one else knows…_  
  
 _I…am…the black…paladin. I had to. I had to…protect…_  
  
 _I couldn’t…I….weak…_  
  
 _I…I couldn’t—_  
  
There’s a single deafening blast, and everything goes white, and everything goes silent. Yet even then, the last image he ever sees, burned into his brain before darkness finally takes him, is the watching, hungry gaze of the Devourer, waiting in the void.   
  
_I couldn’t—_

* * *

  
  
Twenty-six quintents and a billion light years away, Shiro wakes in the real world with a gasp.  
  
His friends crowd around him speaking, as he stumbles out of a pod, but he barely hears them. He doesn’t know how he got here. He doesn’t care. There’s only one image burned into his mind, terrifying and powerful and oh so _real,_ in a way that chills him down to the core of his bones:  
  
A thousand burning eyes staring at him out of a deep void, patient and hungry and _waiting._

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What will happen now? Will history repeat itself...or is Shiro a stronger black paladin than his predecessor after all? 
> 
> Thanks for reading, everyone! Every comment, view, kudos, like, and bookmark is most appreciated. You're all wonderful.
> 
> Special shout-out to Bosstoaster for bouncing these ideas around with me to begin with to make them stronger, and then relentlessly encouraging me to keep writing this thing. 
> 
> And once again, HUGE praise and a thousand thank-yous to Curiosity-killed, who did all the gorgeous art throughout all of this fic in an incredibly short amount of time! Be sure to check out her art over on tumblr:  
> http://curiosity-killed.tumblr.com/
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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